


Vår

by Amigara



Series: The Straying Prince Universe [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Canon Queer Character of Color, Disassociation, Dogs, F/F, F/M, Families of Choice, Fantasy, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hallucinations, Healing Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Masturbation, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Open Marriage, Original Fiction, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Violence, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Sexual Content, Slice of Life, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-08-24 01:07:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 39,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8350330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amigara/pseuds/Amigara
Summary: Vår (Swedish) /voːr/

  Pronoun

vår (possessive)
   1. our; belonging to us
 

  Noun

vår c
   1. spring; the season between winter and summer
 
After everything, Kael finds a home. Contains spoilers for The Stolen Prince.





	1. No One's Gonna Love You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each chapter is named for a song. Chapter one is [Band of Horses - No One's Gonna Love You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lnkzfUaDOY)

It was a mistake, and the moment he let it happen he knew it. Before Ryca's beautiful, harrowed face contorted into a fearful, disgusted expression, Kael pulled away. His numb bottom lip tingled with the memory of warm touch, a whisper of a promise that one day, he might be able to smile again, might be able to move his face freely again.

 

"Oh. Oh, no, Kael..." Her husky voice was so heavy with grief that he wanted to curl back up into himself. He'd just been so _grateful_ and so _lonely_ and so, so _happy_ to have her there.

 

But he couldn't say any of those things. Couldn't explain what he felt, or what it meant. He only very vaguely knew why it was wrong. Why he could never be able to touch or care or love again without it being  _wrong_ . It had all been twisted up inside him. She had been right, when she said he'd been broken. Ruined.

 

"Kael, look at me." She said, in a firm but gentle tone. He tried not to look, but his right eye flickered up at her face, squinting to make her out in the flickering light of their fire. His left eye was filled with a thick, throbbing shadow. Blood, Ryca had explained. Coagulating, pressing on the nerves that allowed him to see. The floating clots looked like ghosts. The ghosts were not really there. They were something real that looked like something that was not.

 

"Do you love me?"

 

He nodded. The memory of heavy steel made it hard to lift his head again.

 

"I mean, more than as a friend? Do you want me?" 

 

Tears pricked his eyes. He shook his head. 

 

"Then don't. Don't ever, unless it's something you want." She sounded so stern, that growl suddenly sounding different in his ear. A high pitched hum started up in his left ear, a sharp headache chasing after. He covered his ear and pulled his knees up, hiding his face in them.

 

She wrapped around him. Warm and smelling of sweat and blood and sweet rum.  _Wrong_ .

 

"I want to go home", He whispered. But home didn't exist, had never existed the way he remembered it. Home had not been the temple-castle now razed and burned to the ground, not the wood shack on the slope, full of smoke and sickness. Home had been a man who had only existed in his mind. Like the blood clots in his eyes, Kael had turned what was really there into something else.

 

"You'll find your way home", Ryca promised emptily.

 

Kael pretended to be asleep until she let go and stopped staring at him.

 

 

 


	2. Your Hand In Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Explosions In The Sky - Your Hand In Mine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdiY6kijYHE)

The caverns melted around them, and the rock turned slippery and treacherous. Giant centipedes slithered from the cracks in the rock and fled. Kael and Ryca followed them, stumbling along, leaning on one another.

 

The sun filling the mountain chambers was blinding, and Kael pulled his hood up and lowered his gaze, focusing on the sound of their breathing, their steps, the ringing of the chain dangling from his neck. Rhythmic and steady, he imagined he was riding on a horse. He had both his arms to hold onto the reins, and the sound of metal brushing metal was the sound of shoed hooves on the stone. The proud laughter next to him was so familiar. Marett had promised that he would teach him, once. Yet the first time he'd been on a horse with him, they had been fleeing Exile, heading to their graves.

 

Ryca breathed a heavy sigh of relief and he looked up. He could only see the brightness, and so the shadows floating in the left side of his vision in sharp relief. But soon his eye adjusted and he saw green. So much green, with blue skies above, and the green was dotted with purple blurs. Heather. He had seen a painting, once, in a storybook. 

 

"I've only seen this view of Solfru once." Ryca whispered. "It's far more beautiful today."

 

Kael nodded numbly. His face was warm. He went to hide in his cloak once more, when something moved in from the darkness on his left, past the shadow that was Ryca leaning on him, and stepped into the light.

 

He heard Ryca inhale sharply and move to push him behind her. But Kael felt so numb he didn't feel afraid. He looked up again, and saw a familiar, impossible shape. Ryca had reacted to it too, so it couldn't be a ghost. 

 

The white shape moved in so fast, embracing him. It was warm and soft, like Aderia, and so distantly familiar he couldn't help but wrap his right arm around it.

 

"Kael", sobbed a soft, girlish voice. She had to be a ghost. Had to be. But she was warm to the touch. He could touch her. He stroked her thin, white hair and closed his eyes.

 

"Lorrie", he exhaled. "You're..."

 

"Yes. You too." She grinned as she stepped back, and he could focus on her face. Her purple-red eyes, her freckles... many more now than he remembered. Her warm travel clothes, brightly colored. And behind her, a tent sewn from sailcloth and a large, lazy dog wagging its tail but not getting on its feet.

 

"You know each other." Ryca stated, staring between the two. "You're both..."

 

"M-hm." Lorai nodded. "We grew up together." 

 

She was holding Kael's hand. Her hand was so warm, and like she knew, she gently rubbed his throbbing thumb with her paint stained fingers.

 

"Tell me what happened", Lorai said, directing Kael to her tent. The dog lifted their heads, and when he sat down, it laid its head in his lap.

 

 


	3. It's Dark, It's Cold, It's Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is much longer than the previous two. This chapter and the next will be mostly retrospective, retelling parts of what happened before and in The Stolen Prince strictly from Kael's perspective. Expect unpleasant things (please review the story tags above).
> 
> The chapter is named for [It's Dark, It's Cold, It's Winter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxoijqbnqoA) by Sleepmakeswaves.

The story did not come, as Kael had expected, with tears. Lorai held his hand at first, until he grew so restless he tore it from her. It was cold and clammy, and he clutched at his clothes tightly. He had started from what she last knew, and as he spoke, his surroundings slowly faded until he could see nothing but the memories. They pressed against him like a rioting mob, sweaty and full of rage, but with no outlet but words. The words weren't enough, when he wanted to scream, wanted to tear at himself or anyone else. But they let out a little bit of the pressure, a bit of the steam threatening to make him burst at the seams. The swelling inside his heart and throat eased up, and he remembered how to breathe.

 

Faiet had been sweet. He was beyond his twenties, but acted like a child. Kael had been much younger, only thirteen, but he was so much more mature than the gaunt man chained to the tithe throne. Faiet was mostly in a good mood, babbling and laughing as long as one of the winter children engaged him. They could play simple games, or sing songs together, and Faiet would be at ease. He was fed by one of the older winter children, the duty cycling from one to the other weekly. He was cleaned, changed and cared for by those who would soon age out, younger than Faiet but too old still.Sometimes Faiet would throw tantrums. He didn't like the Winter Council, and could scream for hours after any one of them entered the throne room. Kael had pitied the man. He'd been filled with such fear, when he was much younger and first got to meet the Prince, that if he was ever chosen, he'd become the same. But the Council, and some of the older children who still remembered when Faiet was Chosen after the previous Princess, a thin mute girl named Lei, passed away, ensured him that Faiet had always been like that, ever since coming to the Spires.

 

Kael was still afraid of Faiet, until that day in the deepest winter. Even the Winter Children, yes, even the Council, had been going hungry and cold. The Bay had frozen, and snow piled high outside the city walls, making it impossible to get food in. In the town, people had begun eating each other, the guards would whisper to one another. That day, Kael had been so nervous to be chosen to care for Faiet in replacement of one of the older Children who had taken ill. That day, the Spires were overrun by the townsfolk of Exile. That day, Kael saw the hunger in their eyes, and knew that the guards had not been lying.

 

Blaming the man on the tithe throne for no longer pleasing Is, they tore into Faiet. The screams were worse than any Kael had ever heard, and he froze for a moment. The chains held tight as the mob pulled on the Prince's frail body, and he heard the snapping of bone, rather than the breaking of chains. Kael had been entrusted with caring for Faiet and he acted. He tugged with all of his strength on the chain that held Faiet's neck, before he was strangled or his neck snapped, hoping to break the steel free from the cold stone.

 

He heard the whistle of something heavy flying through the air before his right arm exploded in pain. One of the desperate townsfolk had had a similar idea, of breaking the chains so they could drag their kicking and screaming sacrifice down to the floor. But the large blacksmith had planned this, and Kael in his panic had had no plan. The heavy hammer came down on the chain, and on Kael's arm, again and again. Kael's arm shattered before the stone of the throne crumbled, and before Kael sank to the floor in blinding agony.

 

He had seen Faiet dragged to the foot of the statue of Is before his stomach had been slit open and he'd spilled out onto the marble.Then, he had seen nothing at all. The rest, he had been told after waking up almost a week later, his right arm in excruciating agony, staring up into a face he'd never seen before. It had smiled down gently at him. "I'm Marett", he had growled in a strangely comforting, deep voice. "I heard what happened and came here to guard you so nothing else happens to our next Prince."

 

He had lost his arm. It had to be taken off, the bones all shattered and too broken for repair. The Spires' doctor had been too busy caring for the dead and dying Winter Children to notice the rot beginning to spread in his bandaged limb, and by the time Kael had been seen to again, he could only be saved by sawing off the dying arm. He'd been in pain for months after. Too sick to see the execution of the rioters, too tired to speak. In frightening irony, enough townsfolk, Winter Children and Spire servants and guards were killed in or after the riots that their sparse food stocks lasted until the thaw.

 

Marett fed, cleaned and changed him. He read him stories. He sang to him and combed his hair. Slowly, it began to sink in that he was the last remaining candidate. Of the nearly 50 Children that had lived in the Spires, at least 30 had been slain. The rest were missing. Kael hoped they had run away, had escaped the city or found places to hide. The Council had implied that the mob had likely dragged them out. That they may be dead, or turned into brides or meals for the hungry masses.

 

Kael had wished that they would be found again. That the Council would find some other Winter Children somewhere. That some desperate parents would sell their children, as he had been sold. He didn't want to become what Faiet had been. But every time he doubted, Marett had made him feel better. He promised him a spring, and then a summer, and then milder and milder winters. He didn't lie. It was as if Is was pleased. Marett said that was because Kael would be the next Prince. Kael had worried it was because so much blood had been shed.

 

Life had not been too bad, once the pain started to subside. With the warmth of the season change, his arm ached less, and while the fear and grief never went away, it settled into the back of his mind. Since he was now the only candidate, he had the Council's undivided attention. And more importantly, he had Marett's. Marett had taken it upon himself to take over his education, his training and his health. He had the old glasshouse outside his room repaired, and gifted him with so many flowers and fruit trees that it became a lush oasis. Kael had never seen anything like it, raised on the ashy dark slopes of Eld and then brought to the cold stone city of Exile.

 

They developed a routine. Between his other duties, Marett would see to Kael. Help him bathe and dress, if he was having a bad day. Make sure he ate. Taught him lessons and even, eventually, began to teach him how to read. He barely had to see the rest of the Council anymore, and if Kael even suggested that any of them made him uncomfortable, or treated him poorly, Marett would guard him fiercely. Kael didn't go to the throne room if he could help it. It made him feel sick to his stomach. It made his arm ache like it was shattered all over again. But besides that, he had been okay. Perhaps not always happy, but okay.

 

He turned fourteen. He turned fifteen. He turned sixteen. The Council began to whisper, and even with Marett trying to protect him, Kael heard. He was getting too old. He'd be too old soon, turned away from the Spires and thrown into the cold, cruel world. A failed candidate. Rejected by Is. "They will eat you alive, out there, child", Councilman Sebhan had said to him while Marett was not looking, "But if you'd like, I could take you in."

 

Marett had seen them as Kael was cringing away from a greasy hand on his shoulder, and swiftly escorted him away. Kael had not slept that night, worried to death that he would not be chosen. Worried to death that he would be chosen.

 

And then, it had been a day like any other, until the flowers had turned up in the throne room. A divine symbol. An engagement present. Kael had not slept that night, either.

 

 

 


	4. Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is named for [Sarah McLachlan - Ice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CJilzJ_7ck).

 

The sun was setting and Lorai made a fire, setting a kettle to boil over the fire to make them some strengthening tea. Kael took a little break, his throat dry and sore, to sip the warm tea and feel a little better right away. Once the tea was all gone, and the two women turned to him expectantly once more, Kael resumed the story at the point where he was abducted. How scared he'd been, but how kind Ryca and Aderia, yes, even Medin had been to him. Then the Queen had gotten hold of him, and he'd been separated from his new friends.

 

As they reached this point in the story, Ryca could join in and add details, and Lorai could fill out some other blanks with rumors and news she had heard from the capital. The plan had been to bring Kael back and use him as a bargaining chip. But then, the Queen had died, and Princess Midsommar had acted rashly, attacking Ishem. Ryca filled in the gaps in Kael's memory from the wedding ceremony and what happened after. And Kael... he couldn't quite tell them what he had gone through.

 

Ryca knew part of it, of course. She was clever. She recognized the signs. She had known from the first time Marett hurt him. But Lorai...

 

Kael glossed over the details. Describing what he remembered of the wedding ceremony, and then the agony seeping back into his cold body as the ritual wine left his system. His mind slowly returning only to realize everything was so very wrong. He'd been injured in the uprising during the ceremony. His head had nearly been bashed in with rocks, his left eye blinded and the whole left side of his face had been paralyzed. He had continued to hallucinate for a while, trying to plead for help, for something to stop the pain. The Council had kept meditating around him, whispering their prayers.

 

Then Ryca had saved him by attacking him, risking her life to save his. His brain would have kept swelling until it broke down entirely. Ryca explained as much, and it made Kael feel sick again, thinking about it. He had been so very close to becoming the second Faiet. And perhaps, though he did not say as much, that might have been preferable. At least, he would have not been aware when Marett claimed his bride for the first time, or any of the subsequent times.

 

"Marett decided that since he was Is' voice among humans, he would become Is." Kael explained simply. His words were bland, and he did not mention or even flinch at the memory of hands and lips on his cold skin. "I encouraged him. I was delusional. And I was scared. Marett had always been..." He hesitated. As he remembered it now, he had not been kind. He had simply been less cruel than anyone else. Starved for attention, Kael had latched on to the first adult who had smiled at him, who had treated him like he was worth their time."Marett had always been there", he amended his sentence. "And I feared him less than the unknown. Less than Is."

 

Lorai reached out to touch his shoulder. He was so tired. He rested his head on her hand for a moment.

  
"He is not cruel, Kael, and you don't need to fear him. Is has always been kind to me. He saved me when I escaped from Exile, and has been with me since. Until... until the wedding."

 

"I know. I saw him. At first, I thought... my mind was finally broken. But I spoke to him... I can't really... explain how Is did what he did. He made a statue of me. It was brought to Exile, to sit next to Is. Hopefully, that's the end of it all. Of the tithe throne. Of Winter Princes and Princesses. Of the Council."

 

Ryca stared at him firmly, as if encouraging him to go on. To tell Lorai what really happened. But Kael averted his gaze. He still felt her eyes on him, piercing.

 

"What happened to Marett? Did Is... punish him?"

 

Kael shrugged. Maybe that was what it had been, but... "I tricked him into taking his own life."

 

As he said as much, he felt beyond tired. He was so cold and numb, even with the warm tea and the fire. He curled up inside his cloak. Ryca rubbed his back. He didn't allow himself to react to the touch. It relaxed him a little, but he didn't want to relax.

 

"Take my tent", Lorai offered. "I'll keep watch here."

 

Kael crawled into the tent without objections, and while he didn't sleep, he relaxed into the darkness and the solitude. He could hear Ryca and Lorai converse outside the tent in hushed tones. He covered himself in Lorai's sleeping bag and ignored them. If he closed his eyes to block out the light, the flickering ghosts in his left eye weren't as obvious, and neither was the building pressure, the headache drumming behind his eyes with every erratic heartbeat.

 

He was tired, but he didn't sleep for a long time, still. Wrapped in the warmth and the thankfully unfamiliar scent, he couldn't stop thinking.

 

 

 


	5. Water From The Same Source

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is named for [Water From The Same Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH2c6G3tzyM) by rachel's.

 

They traveled for a few days, not many, but Kael still lost count. His head hurt a lot, and Ryca seemed concerned, but he suffered no other symptoms. There was no swelling, no further loss of vision, and his half paralyzed face actually seemed to improve rather than worsen. The lax left corner of his mouth would twitch sometimes when he tried to move it now, and when he touched his hand to his cheek, he could feel the pressure more easily.

 

Lorai was curious, he knew, and Kael was interested in her, too. In what she'd done, what had happened to her since she left. But he was tired, and he was afraid to ask, to find out how much he had missed out on. If he had escaped with her that day, how different would his life be now? If he had run, instead of tried to save Faiet, he would have had both arms. Faiet still wouldn't have lived either way. Perhaps it was his time to die.

 

The Council would have been left with no one. He would have never met Marett. The thought made him feel sick, both with grief and something else. Like a thick, syrupy poison, his memories had all been ruined too. A thick film of filth covering things that had once made him smile, and now touching on even the fondest memory left him feeling tainted.

 

"Did you miss me?" Lorai asked one evening, coming up to him as he sat by the cold water of the river, dipping his fingers in the water. He could count on the fingers of his one hand all the times he'd seen water outside of a bath or a cup or a watering pail or a fountain. This water was flowing like the fountains of Sun City, rather than waving back and forth like the open sea. But it was not pumped up from the ground like it was in the Solfruan capital. When Kael was so distracted by watching leaves and flower petals drift along the stream that he forgot to answer Lorai's question, she spoke again.

 

"It's melted snow from the mountains", Lorai explained. She sat down on his right side, where he could see her, and pointed north, along the Belt and to the tallest peak off in the distance, barely sillhouetted against the starry sky behind it. Kael had to squint. He had already had blurry vision, now half his field of vision was just dark, too.

 

"The snow from Skymningsberg and other peaks melt and run down the mountain sides, and it comes down here, all the way down to the ocean off Sandpoint. In Ishem, there's another big river that goes through the Belt and into Frost."

 

Lorai drew the map in the dirt with her finger. She drew a large shape that looked almost like a bean, curving downwards, but Kael understood that it was a map of the Crowns. She circled the left half of the bean. The Belt. And in the center of where the ring went through the bean-shaped continent, she drew a short line.

 

"That's the Door", Kael said.

 

"Yeah. That's the Door. And here", at the very top of the bean where it met the ring, she drew a triangle, "is Skymningsberg. Tam and I live in a village at the foot of that mountain, all the way to the north."

 

Kael looked at the map, remembering the maps he'd seen in his classes. He looked at the left half. Ishem. If the door was in the middle... He made a cross just inside the ring, on the concave of the 'bean'. "Then this is Exile."

 

"And Frost is up here", Lorai made a circle to symbolize the no longer frozen lake at the upper left of Ishem, just south of the Belt.

 

"And this is Eld", Kael said. Drawing another triangle in the ocean just inside the ring, to the west of Ishem.

 

"That's where you're from." Lorai remembered with a smile.

 

Kael nodded. "Yeah. It's a volcano, but people live there anyway. There's metal in the ground, and they dig it out, and then they use the heat of the mountain to melt it and shape it. It's very dusty and warm there."

 

Lorai smiled and scooted a little further away, off to the south of their crudely drawn map. Several feet away she drew another circle in the dirt. "This is where I'm from. Karus."

 

"Like the goat?" Kael asked.

 

"Yes", Lorai laughed. "Like the goat. I'm stubborn as one, too, Tam says."

 

Kael's face was twitching in a smile, but it faded fast. So did Lorai's, and she scooted closer again.

 

"Are you okay?"

 

Kael nodded and looked at the ground. "I was just wondering who Tam is." And why Lorai sounded so happy, speaking about someone who called her stubborn like a goat. He was worried now that maybe Lorai wasn't so happy here. That maybe she'd not really escaped at all.

 

"Oh! Oh, Kael, I'm sorry, I didn't tell you." Lorai beamed again. "Tam is my wife. Her family saved me when I got to Skymning, and they took me in. We fell in love, we built our own home, we moved in together... we have three dogs."

 

"But you're a winter child", Kael whispered in horror.

 

"Yeah. And I was worried too, at first. But Is was with me. I spoke to him often. He said he wanted me to be happy. And I am, Kael. Tam is good to me."

 

"How long...?"

 

"Uhm... we've been married a year, we were engaged to be for one year before that. And no, Tam is still well. She's not sick, and she's never been in an accident. Kael, you said you met Is. You know that's all superstition. It's something the Council tells us, so we won't get close to anyone else." Lorai sighed. Kael flinched, feeling stupid again. He did know that. It was just a strong instinct to react to it.

 

"And you're... I mean, she's, she's touched you, and..." Kael felt his face burn even as his stomach knotted up tightly inside him.

 

"Actually, it's more like I touch her, you know...?" Lorai said dreamily, vaguely gesturing at nothing. Kael did not know. "Tam's a little shy. But don't tell her I said that."

 

Kael shook his head. He wouldn't.

 

He wanted to ask Lorai more. He wanted to know if Lorai was ever hurt, in the Spires. But he couldn't speak about it. It felt like revealing too much. Like... betraying Marett. _Don't kiss and tell_. Laela was always shy and soft spoken, she wouldn't act like that. She loved everyone. She protected everyone.

 

But Kael wasn't Laela. He was never perfect like she was. He was never good enough as he was. His head pounded and he closed his eyes. He rubbed gently at his left eye, hoping to soothe the pain behind it, or somehow wipe away the damage done to it. It only hurt worse. He was still sore, still bruised.

 

"Come back to the tent and have some tea", Lorai said.

 

Kael came with her, to find Ryca asleep in the tent with Lass curled up at her side. He couldn't think of a time he'd ever seen Ryca sleep, so he stayed very quiet as they took a seat at the fire, and Lorai prepared their tea.

 

Once the sweetdream brew soothed his mind enough, Kael stretched out on the other side of the large dog, and allowed himself  to sleep as well.

 

 


	6. Ambre

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Nils Frahm - Ambre (Wintermusik)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwtewNWsVuY)

It was nearing evening the next day when they could finally see the outline of the village against the hazy mountainside. Lass set off in an excitable bark, running home ahead of the rest. Lorai laughed and cheered her on, before turning to Ryca and Kael, adjusting the heavy backpack containing her tent, sleeping bag, supplies, and cooking equipment. "Tam should be home already. Look, there's smoke coming from the chimney."

 

She pointed, but Kael couldn't see it. Ryca nodded though, offering a terse smile. Since they met up with Lorai, Ryca had distanced herself. Kael noticed, and it worried him. He really had ruined everything when he tried to kiss her. He'd just been so desperate to keep her with him. And now she was disgusted with him, regardless of what she said.

 

Kael couldn't blame her, so even though it hurt, he stayed away. He missed Ryca, though. He wished he could talk to her, but he couldn't. Not without it feeling like she judged him for being weak. Even after she had warned him, even after she told him about Minnow, he still didn't get it. This was his fault, and it wasn't fair to keep Ryca involved when it appalled her so.

 

"TAM!" Lorai yelled when they got close enough to smell cooking on the wind.

 

Three sets of excited barks replied, and three large, long haired dogs ran to greet them. The blond Lass, first, and the other two Lorai introduced as Dis (a shaggy haired gray dog with tall legs) and Ros (a red, silky-haired dog that was a little smaller than the other two, but no less happy to see them).

 

Lorai laughed and dropped her backpack before rolling on the ground, wrestling and playing with the dogs for a moment.

 

"How old are you again?" A low, somewhat hoarse voice asked. It spoke Solfruan, but something about the intonation and accent made Kael's stomach sink again.

 

Lorai got back on her feet and grinned, covered in dirt and dog hair. "Tam!" She held her arms open for a hug.

 

Tam sighed and rolled her eyes but stepped into the hug. When she came closer, and became less blurry, Kael stepped behind Ryca, despite internally vowing to let her go.

 

Tam was taller than Lorai, and she had broad, muscular shoulders. Her nose was long and curved and her skin was bronzen. Her eyes were a piercing brown and her hair (brown not copper, brown not copper, _brown not copper_ ) was slicked to one side, falling over the left half of her head. She had a pale scar horizontally across the bridge of her nose. She rested her sharp chin on Lorai's soft shoulder and wrapped her scarred arms around her waist, holding her close in what must be a suffocating embrace.

 

Kael held onto Ryca's hand so tightly he thought he could hear the creaking of bones, but she squeezed back, rather than chiding him.

 

Tam opened her eyes and looked right at Kael, a crooked smile grazing her (soft, not actually that familiar) features. She didn't smile like him. Her eyes (beyond the color) didn't look like his. "Hi. You must be Kael. And... you're Ryca." She moved her gaze from Kael's twitching face to Ryca's steady, cold one.

 

Kael nodded and let up on Ryca's hand. Still holding onto her, but not trying to crush her bones. The more he looked at the blurry face, the less it looked like Marett. Tam pulled away from Lorai and came around to greet them. Kael took a deep, steadying breath.

 

Tam's face was softer. Her skin was a tone closer to Ryca's, more yellow than red. Her hair was entirely different. She wasn't as tall. And when she was close enough to hold her left hand out to him, he could tell she didn't smell like sweat and sweet rum. She smelled like cooking and the ocean. Kael took her hand. Hers was smaller, more slender, strong but not forceful. It gently closed around his and squeezed lightly once before letting go.

 

"I've heard a lot about you", she said, before turning to Ryca and taking her right hand. "And you."

 

Lorai had told them, as they traveled north, that Medin and Aderia had been saved by Tam, that they had stayed in their home, before going south to the Door and back into Ishem. Ryca had expressed her gratitude then, and now she did again.

 

Ryca clasped Tam's hand between both of her own. "Thank you for saving Aderia. She was my sister."

 

"Was?" Tam asked, concerned. "What happened to her?"

 

Ryca shook her head and looked away, pulling her hands away. "I don't know. We got separated in Exile... then, the Queensguard attacked. I haven't seen her since. I can only assume..."

 

Kael felt awful suddenly. He had been so occupied with his own grief he'd barely considered Ryca's. He stepped in close and wrapped his arm around her. Ryca seemed surprised, but embraced him in return. Kael sighed against her chest. "They'll be okay, Ryca. Medin... Aderia... I made Is promise. He'd protect them."

 

Ryca looked down at him with something like pity on her face. He'd seen it directed at him so often. He pulled away, wrapping his arm around himself instead, hugging himself tightly. "Then don't believe me! Maybe... maybe you should just go. Before I ruin you, too." Kael lost his steam halfway through his yelling.

 

Ryca bit her lip and shook her head. "No, Kael. I do believe you saw something. I saw something too. And it's not... your fault. I'll trust you on this, and have faith in Aderia."

 

Kael calmed down to a rush of shame, but Lorai and Tam both pretended to have heard nothing.

 

"Dinner is ready, if you're all interested. I know Lorai's a good cook, but traveling fare gets repetitive. I got some fresh seaweed soup and bread from the village... I didn't expect you to get back so soon, so the servings might be a bit small... but you're welcome to share it with us." Tam showed the way up a grassy slope, past a small shack to a larger fishing hut, built from sunbleached and seaworn pieces of driftwood.

 

"When I saw the snow begin to melt around the Belt, and the smoke covering your skies, I knew something was happening in Ishem. I told Tam I'd watch the Door to see if anyone came through. And there you were." Lorai grinned.

 

"No signs of the others?" Kael asked hopefully.

 

Lorai shook her head. "A large group was heading toward Sun City when I came closer. I saw them in the distance. But I didn't see Aderia or Prince Medin."

 

They entered the hut. It was a small room, no larger than Kael's bedroom in the Spires, with a beaded curtain separating the main room from a room off to the side. A clutter of cookware, fishing poles, various tools and dried herbs and fish hung from the ceiling. The floor was made from more driftwood, covered with woven reed mats, the back wall bare to make room for a cobbled stone oven, with a chimney rising up through the ceiling. Kael cautiously peered behind the curtain to the side of the door. It seemed to be a closet, with dresses and tunics and leggings hung on the wall, and a ladder leading up to a darkened loft above.

 

Ryca cleared her throat softly. He pulled his head back out and blushed, but Lorai and Tam just smiled. The dogs ran inside after them, nearly knocking Ryca over, before chasing each other around the room and running back outside. Tam sighed and reached past Ryca, closing the door behind the dogs.

 

"Ros and Dis haven't seen Lass in two weeks", Lorai explained as she took a seat on a cushion on the floor.

 

"I haven't seen you in two weeks, but you don't see me running after you like a wild thing", Tam replied, bending down for a kiss.

 

Lorai giggled and reached up to kiss her. "And I'm very disappointed."

 

Ryca cleared her throat again, louder this time, and took a seat as well. Kael joined them, sitting between Lorai and Ryca. He'd already decided Tam was nothing like Marett, but he still felt safer that way.

 

Ryca saw it first, and stiffened somewhat. Staring past Lorai's head and at the wall that had been concealed around an outcropping that allowed for the ladder in the other room. Kael noticed her stare and followed it to the painting on the wall.

 

"That's", Lorai started, but Kael interrupted her.

 

"Laela."

 

Lorai nodded happily. "I painted her myself. I wanted to pay tribute... I gave her more clothes, though, she always looks so cold in the old portraits. And her smile..."

 

"She looks happy", Kael said breathlessly.

 

"I always thought she looked sad, in our books. But I don't think she was." Lorai said, taking Kael's hand. Hers was so warm and soft. It reminded him of Aderia's. He could feel its warmth all the way to his bones. "Sister Iona always said, she was painted with a smile because she loved everyone. But it never looked like a smile to me."

 

Kael nodded. He had thought the same. Her eyes had always bothered him. Or perhaps he was overthinking it now, that he knew more about the tithe. "She's very pretty."

 

Lorai squeezed his hand in reply. Tam served their meal. Small bowls of soup and fresh rolls of seeded bread that smelled like the most amazing thing in the world. "She looks a lot like you. But I'm sure everyone says that." Tam smiled. She meant well.

 

Kael ducked his head and nodded. That was the point, wasn't it? Kael pulled his hand from Lorai's grip and tugged harshly at his braid. Trying to unravel it in stress. Ryca stilled his hand with a questioning look. Kael just gave her a miserable shrug. He had given up on trying to predict his own reactions. What would freak him out, and how, and when. He really had been broken.

 

Ryca pulled his braid into her lap and untied the leather strap keeping it together at the end. Then, gently, she began to unbraid it. Soothing his hair apart with gentle motions. When she was done, she smoothed it over his shoulder, out of the way for eating, and put the leather tie into her pocket.

 

Kael felt a little better, even noticing that Tam and Lorai were patiently waiting for them to finish. He pulled his hood down over his face to hide, but neither of their hosts seemed inclined to chide him about his dinner behavior, for not eating, for eating too fast, for playing with his food, for talking too much, for not talking at all..

 

Marett had always wanted him to be something he was not, to do anything other than the thing he was doing. Tam and Lorai just did not seem to have any expectations of his behavior at all, and the vacuum left behind after the crushing pressure of rules (rules he could never predict, sure, but still rules) made Kael all the more anxious.

 

"Dig in when you're ready," Tam grinned indulgently. And she sure did, barely waiting to finish before bringing her bowl up to her face with one hand and spooning soup into her mouth with the other.

 

Ryca gave Kael a quizzical look when he turned his face to her. Kael shook his head softly and picked up his own spoon. His hand shook, nervous to mess up and spill now, so ungrateful, wasting food, but he noticed no one was watching him, even as he dropped the spoon and it fell onto the cloth laid out for their meal. Lorai was eagerly eating too, tearing a piece of the bread and soaking it in her soup before bringing it, dripping and messy, to her mouth.

 

Kael's heart soared. He hadn't eaten on his own, unassisted, since he'd been attacked. His hand still felt too weak and unsteady to bring a spoon all the way from the bowl on the floor to his mouth. But bread... he could manage that. He was grateful to Lorai, though she might not have done it intentionally, for giving him an easier option.

 

He leaned forward, the chain still dangling from the shackle around his neck, ringing and nearly interrupting his appetite, and tore a chunk of his own from the loaves in the bread basket between them. He dipped it in the seaweed soup. The soggy bread tasted like heaven. It melted on his tongue so he barely had to chew, and the salty, flavorful broth warmed him up instantly.

 

He turned his head again so he could see Ryca, and saw her sip the soup cautiously from the bowl. He knew she had to be hungry, but he also knew she was very picky with her food.

 

They ate in reverent silence, everyone but Ryca grabbing a second helping of the soup (though Tam had claimed there to not be a lot of it, Kael was flabbergasted at her concept of 'a small amount of food'). When they had scraped the bottom of the pot for the last drops of soup and split the last piece of bread, Tam leaned back with a satisfied sigh.

 

"I'm glad everyone enjoyed it."

 

"Thank you so much," Kael whispered. He felt so warm and full and satisfied he might cry. He felt his right eye water. The left eye probably was, too, but he did not feel it. Other than during his time with Queen Melara, he couldn't remember having enough food, and then he hadn't had the appetite to eat it all. In Ishem, you were always cautious with your food, never eating your fill (though some of the Councilmembers certainly did not abide by that rule) in case you would not have enough the next day. Even the Winter Children – even the Winter Prince – had not been fed much. Besides, Kael had skipped meals because it was better to go without than being called selfish or ungrateful for not waiting for Marett to join him so they could eat together. Being called silly and too dependent when he fasted when Marett was away seemed a far gentler judgment.

 

Tam stared at him mutely for a moment before nodding. "Don't worry about it. This village has plenty. We can share easily." Then, almost under her breath, she cursed; "Sol, you're similar."

 

"I know, I know, me and Laela..." Kael muttered, mood souring again.

 

"No. You and Lorai." Tam interrupted him before his mind could turn so numb and cold again. "You remember? When you first came here?" She turned to Lorai.

 

Lorai nodded loftily. "Yeah. I'd never seen so much food before. And your village... I know I look weird and spoke weird, but no one... thought I was that different. No one acted like I wasn't a person."

 

Ryca made a sympathetic noise, like a whimper. She was suddenly wiping at Kael's face again with her skirts. Wiping the food from the left corner of his mouth, wiping tears from his cheek. Kael turned his head away, not needing her doting on him right then, and turned to Lorai.

 

"No one's afraid of you? Or trying to touch you?" That was a polite way of asking, but he was still so guarded.

 

"Well, I'd kick their ass if they tried," Tam bragged. 

 

Lorai laughed. It sounded so beautiful. "No. At first, I didn't believe it, either. I was so... locked up. In my head, I mean. Both surviving the attack on Faiet and the escape here... I didn't talk, I didn't eat. But no one got upset. No one got bored with me. Tam kept trying, and her dad, and Ma Tani... everyone was really good to me. They wanted me to get better. So I did. It took a long time... but I did."

 

Was that even possible? Getting better. Living. Lorai hadn't been through what he had. She hadn't been alone for three years with the Council. She hadn't lost an arm to the mob, or witnessed it up close as Faiet was ripped apart. She hadn't become so utterly dependent on a person, and then been betrayed and hurt. She hadn't used her body, her love, to survive by manipulating the very person that should have just _cared_ for her regardless of what she had to offer him _._ She hadn't been prepared to kill herself, and then being unable to do even that. She hadn't been broken.

 

"Marett cared for me when I lost my arm," Kael said numbly. He was probably repeating himself, but his thoughts were spiraling, repeating themselves obsessively until he solved some problem in them. Until he found the key to correct himself, to change the pattern of spinning, spinning, spinning. "I didn't want to exist anymore. It was like the world just stopped, when Faiet died. When everyone else... I didn't want to go on. But he coaxed me out of it."

 

And it hadn't seemed like he'd ever get bored. Like he did it for his own sake. It had seemed like he was simply there, that he was so good and caring that there was light in the world again.

 

Lorai and Tam exchanged tense glances. Ryca was probably looking at him, but Kael didn't see her. She was in his blind spot, and he kept her there on purpose now.

 

"When I realized I was falling in love," Tam said, something tense and cold in her voice. Kael had said something wrong again. "I let Ma Tani take over Lorai's care, until she was well enough. If something would ever develop between us, it would feel wrong otherwise. Like I was abusing her trust in me. We wouldn't be equal if I was her nurse."

 

That eased Kael's mind. He wanted, so desperately, for Tam to be good to Lorai. Lorai deserved something good. The anxiety their story had woken inside him settled down again, at least a little. He turned his head to Ryca again. She smiled softly. Kael took her hand, and let Ryca wipe his face again, if that made her feel better.

 

 

 

 


	7. Nothing Arrives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Villagers - Nothing Arrives](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbSUduKbIvE)

Kael was sitting in the shade of the Belt, enjoying the mild afternoon by the river running east of Skymning. He was within earshot of Lorai and Tam's hut. He had only dared wander off alone because Lorai had told the dogs to stay with him – Lass laid lazily next to him, while Ros and Dis were barking at one another, chasing each other back and forth across the field behind him.

 

He was dipping his fingertips in the cool, clear water of the river, watching the ripples form. He dug his fingers into the sand, watched the dustcloud billow out and raised his hand again, so the slight current could run the water clear again. He breathed the air deeply, tasting the ocean breeze, the faint creeping chill of winter, but mostly cleanliness. Nature. The grass and flowers of the field. He heard the wind play through the meadow. Off in the village, he heard children laughing. He was comfortable and warm in one of Lorai's dresses and Tam's coats. Tam's boots had been a little large on him, but padded with socks, his feet had never felt so warm and cozy. No one was watching him. No one even knew he existed, but in a good way. A peaceful way. He wasn't Kael, he wasn't a Winter Child, he wasn't the Prince or the Tithe. He simply was. Then he shifted his weight onto his right side as his left leg began to feel numb, and the chain around his neck rattled, breaking the illusion. He felt himself tense up instantly.

 

"You could have that removed," Lorai said behind him. She joined him at the water. Her dress was splattered with paint and powdered dyes. Brown, yellow, red. She'd been in her studio with Ryca, gladly distracting the Seer so that she would allow Kael some time to himself. "There's a blacksmith in the village. He'd take it off for you for free. Tam always gives him part of her catch, so he wouldn't mind at all."

 

Kael nodded. The chain rang out again, and after the peace it was so loud, so jarring. Still, as much as Lorai promised the village would be kind to him, he didn't dare believe that. It was risking everything. The safety of future winter children depended on everyone believing that Prince Kael was dead. If there was a whisper that he'd been seen removing his chains in a remote village in Solfru...

 

Maybe he was being paranoid. "And you trust him."

 

"I do."

 

Kael still hesitated. Finally, he bowed his head. "Okay."

 

"Okay," Lorai beamed. "I'll ask him about it."

 

A ripple of anxiety shot up Kael's spine. "You don't need to rush it," he mumbled, hoping to delay it now that he'd agreed. He hated the steel around his neck. But he wasn't sure if he was ready to meet people yet.

 

He was getting a headache again. He rubbed at his left eye before covering it awkwardly with the palm of his hand.

 

"It still bothers you," Lorai said.

 

"Ryca said it's not likely to heal," Kael answered. "Sometimes I just want to take it out. But it hasn't been very long. Maybe... maybe I'll still be able to see again?" The hope ached within him. His face was better. He could move the corner of his mouth at will now, though the motions were still weak. "Sometimes the light makes it hurt, though. And I keep seeing these... Ryca calls them clots. Floating around in there. I thought they were ghosts, first. It's... it's a little scary, sometimes. I know it looks awful too." He avoided his own reflection all he could. Even sitting at the river, he didn't look at the surface of the water.

 

Lorai hummed for a moment, rubbing her chin in thought. "You could cover it up. So the light won't bother it."

 

Kael stared at her for a moment. He hadn't thought about it... just habitually covering his eye with his hand when it aggravated him. "Like an eyepatch?"

 

"Like an eyepatch!" Lorai agreed excitedly. "Oh, Tam's brother knits these really cute little squares... embroidery and all. Usually he makes patchwork blankets and clothes for the children, but if I make a design, I'm sure he could whip something up for you!"

 

Kael felt dizzy. Lorai was promising him so much. This entire village helping him, when they didn't even know he existed yet. Imagining that they'd do anything for a stranger, much less a foreigner... it'd be unthinkable in Exile. Anything he'd ever gotten from any councilmember or Marett, any offering from visitors from abroad, those things had always been held over his head. A gift was just a favor you were expected to repay in one way or another. It made him nervous, because he had nothing to give them in return.

 

Lorai seemed to read his mind (or rather, she must have had the same thoughts when she first came here, too. She had been raised in the Spires as he had been.) and shook her head. "It's not like that here. People help each other, because it's the right thing to do. You take care of your neighbors. If you feel too guilty... you'll think of something to repay them with later. But don't worry. They won't expect it."

 

Kael still wasn't sure he believed her. He lowered his hand as his headache subsided slightly, reaching down to scratch Lass behind the ears. He changed the subject, because he didn't want to keep thinking about how Lorai must be lying to him. "Where is Ryca?"

 

"I left her in my studio to investigate my plant powders", Lorai smiled smugly and tapped her temple with a finger. Like she'd laid some great trap for Ryca by drawing her in with a novel use for herbs. "I wanted to speak to you alone."

 

Another sharp knot of anxiety formed in his stomach. "So speak."

 

"We are. Aren't we?" Lorai smiled. "But I wanted to talk to you... about him."

 

Kael's mouth turned dry and he looked away quickly, squaring his shoulders. He didn't want to talk about Marett. He didn't want to think about him. He didn't want Lorai to know more than she already did. But she had been so kind and generous, and if he refused, if he was rude to her, would she stop being kind? Would she turn on him?

 

"If you'd rather not, I accept that. But since you and Ryca actually met him... tell me more about Is. Please. Ryca won't talk about it."

 

Kael almost instantly relaxed, the tension melting off him with a great sigh. "Oh. Oh, yes." He turned back to Lorai and nodded. "Of course."

 

Lorai clapped her hands together in excitement and scooted closer, like she might have back in the Spires, when they briefly shared a bedroom, sneaking closer after curfew to gossip about the Council or other candidates. "How was he?"

 

Kael shrugged. "Sort of... underwhelming. We spent every damned day cleaning that statue, climbing up to the top, and it was so large and scary, and... he wasn't. At all."

 

Lorai smiled and nodded. "Not at all."

 

"More like... a fairy. A little larger. About as tall as I, but... smooth. Brittle. Translucent skin. Like... a figure made from ice, I guess. Big, dark eyes. Horns. Long fingers. He didn't have a mouth. And he spoke into my head... He said he wasn't a god at all. But he didn't say what he actually was." Kael thought back to it. The shock of a presence, a physical creature, stepping forward inside the chest cavity of the great crystalline statue made in his likeness, submerged in the then frozen waters of Frost.

 

Lorai seemed deep in thought. "And what else did he say?"

 

Kael blushed. "He traded my form for wishes. I'm not actually sure what I wished. I was too... upset. But he melted the lake, and made Eld explode, and the Bay froze solid... the war ended, and Ishem... all the snow melted. It's so warm there now... stifling. There's no more winter."

 

Lorai seemed to know that Kael was thinking about something more that he did not say, as she leaned in even closer, until he was all but trapped in her arms. "And what else?"

 

"He copied me. Like the statue in the Spires, but... true to size. It looked just like I did, at that moment. Beat up and disgusting." Kael cringed at the memory. The heavy crown melded to the crystal Kael's skull. The chains, the swollen eye. "I asked why he didn't make me perfect. Marett always said how imperfect I was, how I wasn't... like _her_. But then Is said-" Kael choked up, and he couldn't speak.

 

"You were already perfect," Lorai filled in.

 

Kael nodded, hiding his face and tears in the crook of his elbow. It took a moment of being held and rocked until he calmed enough that he could speak again. "Even when he was dying, he called me Laela. Even when we..."

 

"Marett?" Lorai asked.

 

Kael nodded, his teeth clattering with the effort to not wail out loud. Lass whined on his lap, and through his tears, he vaguely noticed the other two dogs having joined them by the river. He hadn't noticed when their barking stopped before.

 

"But you're not a bad Laela. You're a perfect Kael. If he didn't even notice that, I don't think Marett was all that clever." Lorai said in such a disrespecful yet sage-like tone that Kael burst into hysteric laughter.

 

"Yeah," Kael managed to agree, wiping his face with his sleeve. "I don't think he was."

 

Lorai pulled away with a grin. Kael's breathing steadied. As always, Lorai had managed to cheer him up when it had seemed impossible. The moment Lorai sat back from their embrace, he was mobbed by the hounds, lapping at his tear-stained face. Kael giggled and pushed at their heavy, furry bodies, until Lorai came to his aid and ordered them to sit. Like one, the dogs all sat perfectly.

 

"For one," Lorai continued like there had been no breakdown, no tears, "Laela never had a unique eyepatch, designed by me and made by Tam's brother."

 

"Neither do I," Kael countered as he climbed to his feet awkwardly, still having trouble finding his balance at times.

 

"A quick fix." Lorai went on ahead, and the dogs leapt up to rush after. "What's your favorite color?" she called back at him over his shoulder.

 

Such a simple question, but one he'd gotten so rarely. He'd always been given things that he was supposed to have. His clothing was always what other people expected them to be. Whether a girlish dress to suit Laela or an extravagant gown to turn heads toward a foreign prince in Solfru, no one asked. Kael had to think for a moment. He thought of his greenhouse and the flowers that would bloom there in spring. He thought of Kay, his pet bird now cared for by his siblings. He thought of Lorai's kind eyes. He thought of ice melting, and the first budding leaves on the needle-less trees that had stood naked through the cold winter.

 

"I'm not sure," He said. "There are so many pretty colors."

 

"I guess we'll have to make you a few different ones, then." Lorai's retort came so natural, so carefree. Like the effort and time and material it would cost meant nothing. Like she would give him so much so freely. He wasn't used to the lack of demands.

 

Panicking a little at the thought, Kael tried to limit himself quickly, before Lorai and Tam's brother made more eyepatches for him than he could possibly pay back. "Uhm, sky blue, like Kay... like a forget-me-not. And uh, light green. Like fresh leaves. And pink, like your eyes."

 

Lorai turned to look back at him. Kael stopped still in his tracks, turning his head away and covering his left cheek with his hand before she saw him blush.

 

"Your eyes are pink too, in the middle. But blue around. They're very pretty."

 

Kael couldn't believe she'd say something like that. Especially, not with his left eye being a swollen, blackened mess of useless flesh. He shook his head fiercely, disagreeing with the compliment.

 

"You're not too clever either then, if you can't agree," Lorai said flippantly. "But pink and blue would look good on you. I have the dyes already, so it won't take long."

 

Kael hurried along, and she kept pace with him on the way back to the shack. Once more when they were close, the dogs ran off ahead of them. Soon after, Kael could hear Ryca's voice carry, along with the high pitched voices of two children.

 

Dread made Kael slow his steps, hoping to drag behind slow enough that by the time they arrived, the children would have gone away. Yet, he had no such luck. As they rounded the hill, he spotted Ryca seated on the steps to Tam and Lorai's shack, looking strange as she did in borrowed clothing (all several shades lighter than anything Ryca would dress herself in) and short hair. Somewhere she'd gotten hold of (or possibly carved herself) a pipe, and she was puffing on it rapidly.

 

It gave Kael some ease of mind to see that Ryca was uncomfortable, as well. The children, a dark girl with hair like Aderia and knobbly, bruised knees sticking out under her patched dress, and a chubby, taller tan boy with dark hair, were holding hands and staring at Ryca in amazement as they bombarded her with questions. The dogs were lounging around lazily, so the children must have been familiar to them.

 

"Where're you from?" the girl demanded.

 

"Dim," Ryca answered.

 

"Why're you here?" the boy wondered.

 

"I'm staying with Tam and Lorai."

 

"You know aunt Tam and Lorrie?" the girl gasped.

 

Ryca nodded. "Mhm." She had spotted Kael and Lorai by now, and stood up with the help of one of Lorai's walking sticks, brushing her skirts off and putting out her pipe.

 

"Aunt Lorrie!" the girl squealed, and came running, but stopped halfway as her black eyes fixed on Kael's face, then his arm stump, then his face again.

 

Kael brought his shaking hand up to cover his eye. He stopped still in his track, feeling cold sweat form on his skin.

 

Lorai stepped out in front of him, intercepting the children. "Hi Sunny! Taniel! Are you bothering my guest?"

 

Sunny pouted and put her hands on her hips. "Not bothering!"

 

Taniel, who seemed shyer, had caught up with Sunny now. He tugged on her arm, and pointed past Lorai, right at Kael, who felt like he wanted to sink through the ground and vanish.

 

"That's Kael," Lorai said simply. "He's my best friend, from where I used to live before I came to live here with Tam and you guys."

 

Sunny peeked around her. "Is he hurt?"

 

Lorai sighed and glanced back at Kael, before returning her attention to the children. She crouched down to see eye to eye with them. "He was hurt, but he's healing now, so he's gonna stay with Auntie Tam and me for a bit, okay?"

 

Sunny and Taniel both nodded seriously at Lorai, before walking around her and coming up to Kael.

 

It felt like his knees would give out as he awaited the children's judgment. They both looked up at him, and then Sunny wrapped her arms around his waist. She was so tiny and warm. Her thin arms were joined by Taniel's meatier ones, and Kael forgot to cover his eye, giving Lorai and Ryca a helpless, confused look.

 

The kids let him go, and Sunny stared at him seriously. "Get better."

 

"Yeah, feel better soon," Taniel agreed.

 

Kael nodded, speechless for a moment. "Yeah. Okay. Thank you."

 

Sunny's serious expression cracked and she grinned at him again, taking his hand and, with unexpected strength for such a small girl, dragged him along back to the shack.

 

"We're gonna be friends now too," she decided.

 

"Okay," Kael agreed. As Sunny dragged him past Lorai and into the shack, he gave her a silent look to beg for help.

 

Lorai smiled a little at him, and simply shrugged, before following Kael and the children inside, and get tea started for all of them.

 

"Sit here," Sunny ordered, fluffing one of the cushions before making Kael take a seat on it. She then plopped down next to him, and Taniel next to her. Ryca remained standing by the doorway, and Lorai busied herself making a fire.

 

"I'm Sunny," Sunny then introduced herself, having already forgotten that Lorai had introduced her. "I'm six-and-a-half. How old are you?"

 

"Sixteen. And a half," Kael answered. Sunny gasped.

 

"You're so old! Are you married like Aunt Lorrie and Auntie Tam?"

 

Kael shot a glance at Lorai, who wasn't paying attention, and another at Ryca, who looked tense. She raised an eyebrow at him. He understood it to be a question. Did he need help? He gave her a brief shake of the head. They were only children. And unlike any other child he'd ever met, they were allowed to remain childish until they were ready to grow up. He'd not been much older than Sunny when he was sold.

 

"Yes. I am," Kael nodded.

 

"Is your husband kind?" Taniel asked dreamily, putting his head in his hands.

 

"Uh..." Kael cleared his throat. In Ishem, a man marrying a man was out of the ordinary. He'd only heard of it in the case of winter children like himself... and they were never considered men anyway. Always children. It unsettled him that this boy knew who he was married to. Perhaps he'd been told?

 

"Taniel's father Calem is the blacksmith," Lorai explained as she sat down with the rest, bringing with her a steaming pot of tea. "Calem's husband... Taniel's papa... he was very kind."

 

"Papa's still very kind!" Taniel pouted. "Just 'cause he's not here doesn't mean he's not nice anymore."

 

Lorai nodded swiftly. "Of course."

 

Kael settled on deciding who, for the sake of the question, he'd consider his husband. "Yes. He was good to me. He made my wishes come true." All but one, anyway.

 

"Aww," Taniel grinned happily.

 

Ryca cleared her throat to get Kael's attention. He shook his head at her again. "I'm okay."

 

"Does everyone look like that where you're from? You and Aunt Lorrie are both all white." Sunny asked to get Kael to return his attention to them.

 

"Sunny!" Lorai exclaimed.

 

Kael blew on his steaming tea cup, and shook his head. "Oh no. Lorai and I aren't from the same place originally. We... just look like this. It happens sometimes, when people are born." Once, he would have said that they looked like this because they had the blessing of Is. But now that he'd met the so-called god... he knew that wasn't true.

 

"Oh. Mommy says I look like her family because they have very strong blood. Mommy's from the south. But I don't think my blood is very strong because when I fall it washes off just fine with some water," Sunny confided.

 

"Water is very strong," Ryca explained. "It makes rivers and oceans and waves, and if it rains enough, even dirt and stone can dissolve."

 

From there the conversation, mainly led by the curious Sunny, turned to subjects of natural science and theories on the world, and Kael was swiftly as lost as Sunny and Taniel in the difficult words and explanations Ryca used, but whenever anyone didn't understand, Ryca took great care to use easier words until at least Sunny and Taniel seemed to get it.

 

The lesson continued until Tam returned from fishing and sent the children home, then got started on dinner, and Kael realized he hadn't thought about Marett for hours. For a moment, that idea scared him. But then Tam served grilled fish and vegetables on fresh bread, and he was too hungry to worry.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	8. How It Goes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A Nighthawk - How It Goes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_rGG1TjYlQ)

Kael couldn't sleep, and he knew Ryca was awake as well by her light, irregular breathing next to him in the dark. They rested on the floor of the kitchen, with Tam and Lorai sleeping in the loft above. The ladder was too difficult to climb with only one hand, and though Tam and Lorai both insisting they would gladly help Kael up and down, he kept worrying about needing to go outside to pee in the middle of the night, and ending up falling down rather than being a nuisance by waking someone.

 

Ryca, of course, opted for staying downstairs with Kael, rather than join the two women in bed. He was grateful, but on sleepless nights like this, it was more awkward than comforting. He wanted to toss and turn, or get up and pace. His body ached for motion to soothe his racing mind. He tapped his fingers silently against the wood floor. He squirmed and turned over into another position as often as he dared, so that Ryca wouldn't worry. Wouldn't ask if he was okay. She meant well, but ever since the Door, when she'd proven to him just how broken he was, the distance between them felt more and more tense each day. Kael didn't know how to fix it. He was too tired to try.

 

And yet, not tired enough to sleep, though his good eye burned and itched and the other wept numbly. Giving in, he sat up with a loud sigh. His head spun from the sudden motion, and when it stopped, he climbed to his feet. He felt, rather than heard, Ryca stir beside him. He could barely make her out in the dark. He squinted, and she became a little clearer.

 

"Where are you going," she asked.

 

Kael shrugged in response, and his voice came out sharper than he had meant it. "I need to pee. Am I allowed?"

 

She did not move to stop him or help him as he gently stepped over the pile of sleeping dogs and exited the shack into the cold dark night. He didn't hear her scrambling to follow him out onto the dewy grass. His heart sank in relief and disappointment.

 

Kael's feet were bare and his gown thin and loose and his teeth were soon clattering, his toes were soon numb. It was such a familiar pain, the burn of cold on his skin, and it pushed all other thoughts out of his head. He could only think of the burn, of how cold he was, of wanting to get warm. He folded his arm around himself and tucked his fingers up under his right stump. He was aching to the bone. The icesteel collar turned colder still than the air, stabbing his flesh with pins of fire.

 

He remembered the way to the stream. It hadn't been too far in daytime, accompanied by barking hounds. The cool, salty ocean breeze was soothing during the day. Now it howled and dug its claws into him, tearing and ripping at his clothes like a ravenous beast. Kael stumbled and fell to his knees as his feet became numb. For a moment, the howl in his ears did not belong to the eastern winds of Solfru, but to the jeering crowds of Exile, to the whistling rocks thrown at him.

 

Kael crawled the rest of the way, squinting as his eyes watered too much to see in the dark. There were wolves out here too, Lorai had told him. Wolves and mountain cats. The fields and plains around the Belt were dangerous at night. He wouldn't even know if something was stalking him, ready to pounce while he was creeping across the ground, shuffling forward on his hand and knees.

 

He scooted forward, lifting his hand and tensing his whole body to stay up while he moved forward. But when his weight settled back down onto his hand, he slipped. His left hand plunged into cold and wet blackness, and the silty river floor gave way under his fingers. Kael had expected resistance, and was thrown off balance completely, toppling face first into the stream. The water was above his head before he could catch himself, and he couldn't scramble back up the bank. He groped for a grip, each useless grab for some solid surface to press back against only kicking up more sand and mud to fill his mouth and nostrils. Finally, Kael found his balance and rolled over on his back, sitting up to finally break the surface. He hacked and coughed. The taste of dirt coated his tongue, and he was shivering all over.

 

But his mind was clear. Once the panic subsided, he felt at peace. The current wasn't strong enough to drag him along, and the water was only up to his chest, while sitting. The water was cold enough that he couldn't feel anything at all from the waist down. Kael sucked down as much air as his aching lungs could hold, closed his eyes, and laid back.

 

The pain zapped through his body as he lowered it. His shoulders, his neck, the back of his head, the scar at the side of his scalp, a sharp stab of pain _inside_ his skull, his ears, his cheeks, his eyes, and then his lips and nose. But it only took a few seconds of burning before his skin was numbed, and he could settle down against the bottom of the river. He let his breath out slowly through his nose, bubble by bubble of air rising to the surface somewhere above him. His body numbed, and so did his mind.

 

_Is?_ He thought out loud, the volume of his own mind almost startling him out of the restful stillness. There was no reply. So he thought it once more, louder.  _Is! Where did you go?_

 

There was a soft hum in his left ear, then the pressure of a presence. Kael knew he was there.

 

_You asked me to leave you alone._

 

Kael let a few more bubbles of air out through his nose. He thought he felt the tickle of a fish swim by his still body, but the thought drifted away as he focused on the presence at the back of his mind.

 

_I'm sorry,_ he replied.  _I didn't think you'd listen._

 

_But I did listen._

 

_Thank you_ , Kael thought back, a smile tugging at his mouth. His lungs felt empty.

 

_Do you want to die?_ Is asked. It didn't sound judgmental. Simply curious, and perhaps a bit sad.

 

Kael thought for a moment.  _No. I just wanted some peace and quiet._

 

His lungs filled. It was the strangest sensation, like time had rewound and the air he had already exhaled was back in his body, giving him another few moments under water. His body felt warm. He opened his eyes, and with his right one, he could see that the water had cleared. Up through the surface, he saw the stars far above. In the corner of his left eye, he saw a shape, gently glowing blue.

 

_You will have it. In time, you will have everything you wish for,_ Is promised.

 

"Thank you," Kael whispered, the words turning into bubbles and obscuring the stars.

 

_I have little to do with it._

 

The water was suddenly stirred up and sounds of splashing and motion filled Kael's ear. The low hum was still putting pressure on his left ear, but he couldn't hear much on that side anymore anyway. Hands grabbed hold of him and pulled him from the water, shaking him. Lips pressed against his, warm and tasting like tea. His nose was pinched shut and he stared at the blurry, awkwardly close face of Tam. She blew air into his lungs, and then her shaking hands pressed against his chest. They pressed down hard once and Kael coughed, feeling his ribs creak.

 

"Tam!" cried Ryca's voice from some while away. She came stumbling into Kael's field of vision, and Tam stopped trying to break his ribs. "He's already breathing. Look."

 

Kael blinked up at Tam and offered her a sheepish smile and a shrug. 

 

"Oh thank gods," Tam swore and hugged him tight, resting her body on his. He was wet, of course, but he didn't feel cold, or panicked, or disoriented. Her touch didn't scare him.

 

Over her shoulder, sillhouetted against the starry sky, Is leaned over the two of them to wave. Kael waved back. He heard Ryca let out a shaky laugh. Tam whirled around, letting Kael sit up. She was staring, and Kael knew she was seeing him, too. He placed his hand on her shoulder, comforting. 

 

"I'm okay. Thank you."

 

"She was right," Tam mumbled, not taking her eyes away from the almost skeletal, faintly glowing crystalline form of Is, as he slowly sank into the river before vanishing entirely. "Sharks take my legs, but Lorai was right."

 

Ryca leaned on the walking stick Lorai had given her, her right leg wobbling from the effort of running so far. She held a lantern in her left hand, its flame nearly blowing out with each cold gust of ocean wind. Her eyes, wide, were staring past Kael and Tam toward the river, where Is had just disappeared into the water. "I was trying to convince myself that he had been imaginary this entire time..." She muttered, shaking her head.

 

Kael climbed to his feet. He was dripping wet but despite the cold and the wind, he felt warm. His body was no longer numb, and his mind no longer buzzing. He took hold of Tam's wrist and tugged gently on her, to shake her out of her surprised stupor.

 

Tam blinked and stared at him for a moment, before offering a shaky smile. "Let's go home."

 

Kael nodded and the three of them returned, walking together in silence.

 

\--

 

Tam, Ryca and Kael did not go back to sleep that night. In order to not disturb Lorai, Tam made a fire behind the shack, out of the way of the wind, and they warmed up around it, speaking in low tones about what had happened.

 

"You tried to drown yourself," Ryca accused. Kael shook his head.

 

"The cold felt familiar. I just wanted to get some sleep," Kael argued. But Ryca didn't seem appeased. Tam interrupted, before Ryca could retort with a counterargument.

 

"Is was there. He was really there," Tam had repeated similar sentiments since seeing the horned, fey form of the winter god.

 

"Yeah. He had been in my mind since... since the wedding. I remember seeing glimpses of him then. In the corner of my..." He gestured awkwardly around his blind eye. "I told him to go away, after Frost. He did. And tonight I... asked him to come back."

 

"Why?" Ryca snapped. "He has nothing to do with you anymore. You're supposed to be free. You're supposed to-"

 

"Supposed to!" Kael spat back, interrupting as Ryca's voice grew louder and louder. "You're the one who told me I decide now! Is didn't hurt me. It's not his fault what happened."

 

Ryca bristled and shook. She wrapped her arms around herself and her eyes watered. Kael jolted and reached over to her, gently placing his hand on her arm. "Ryca..." he pleaded.

 

"How can you look at him? After everything that happened? How?" she wheezed, trembling with effort to keep from crying. "I think about it every moment. Your face when..." She was wiping angrily at her eyes now, her teeth clattering. "When Marett... Kael, I wish I could have stopped it. No, I could have! How can you even look at me now? You should hate me."

 

Kael didn't know what to do. Ryca had always been so strong, so dependable. She always knew what to do. And if she didn't know, she made something up on the spot. She was the one who had told him, so bravely, what she'd lived through. What she'd gotten herself out of. And now she dared blame herself? But before Kael could formulate his thoughts into words to snap Ryca out of her self loathing, Tam spoke up.

 

"You're not allowed to tell him how to feel," Tam said almost coldly. "He can determine that for himself."

 

Ryca looked up at Tam, startled. She nodded silently, then looked away again.

 

"I don't hate you, Ryca. You kept me alive. You saved my life. And if not for the things you shared with me... I might have... I might not have realized what he was doing to me. How wrong it was. I owe you." He reached out to stroke her arm, to soothe her. Ryca slapped his hand away and stood, struggling to find her balance even with the walking stick. Her injured leg nearly gave way under her, but she righted herself with her pride intact.

 

Kael pulled his hand back and bit his lip. She was upset, and he didn't entirely understand why. He brushed his wet hair out of his face and adjusted the steel collar around his neck to stop it from chafing so. "I'm sorry if I said something to upset you. I'm sorry."

 

"Don't!" Ryca hissed. "Don't say you owe me anything! Don't apologize when you didn't do anything wrong! Don't touch me! Don't... don't look at me like that. Like you're trying to appease me. Like I'd... Like I'd hurt you if you didn't. I'm not like him. I'm nothing like him. I'd never..."

 

Ryca staggered off, still muttering phrases to herself. She ducked into Lorai's painting studio, closing and locking the door behind her.

 

Kael shrank back onto the ground and gave Tam a helpless look. Tam furrowed her brow and shrugged. "Give her some space. I think she needs it."

 

Kael nodded, but he worried for her health. For her safety. And he was confused about her words. Did she really think he saw her the same as Marett? That he was only trying to make her happy, so she'd be nice to him? She was nothing like him. Kael regretted slipping up and kissing her even more now. He squared his shoulders and stared into the fire.

 

"So... you want to explain what that was about?" Tam asked lightly, poking the fire with a stick to make sparks fly and heating the fire more.

 

"I'm not sure myself," Kael lied, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arm around them.

 

 

 


	9. Darden Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Beta Radio - Darden Road](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpF_Z2Q6ZCA)

The blacksmith lived on the edge of the small, widely spaced cluster of houses, backed on one side by the mountain, the other by the ocean, and overlooking some small farms and pastures where goats, mules, and a few sheep grazed peacefully. The trail up the grassy knolls from Tam and Lorai's shack lead them past boats pulled up from shore and nets hung up to dry, through the tilled farm, and past some wooden racks where fish and root vegetables, sliced into rings and hung up on strings, were drying in the sunlight. Kael had his hood pulled up over his face and tightly held onto Lorai's hand. Ryca limped along with the help of her walking stick, now officially hers since she'd insisted on trading for it, exchanging some of her knowledge of healing herbs, written down for Lorai to keep. Tam had left ahead of the group to see her brother's family. The plan was to visit with them, once Kael's chain had been removed.

 

It was the first part of the plan that scared Kael more than the rest of it. Lorai hummed peacefully, and though it was early in the morning, many of the villagers were out repairing their nets or tending to their animals. Lorai greeted each with a shout and a wave, and each time their curious gazes fell on Kael and Ryca, Kael wished to be back in the shack again, or better yet, back in the cold and calm river. But no one approached or questioned their presence. They merely gave them a brief, curious look, then returned to their own business.

 

"I'll introduce you later," Lorai said for each person, before giving a brief description of them, such as, "That's miss Effie, she's very sweet. She bakes the best cakes and she loves her hens like they were her children," or, "His name's Iro, he was a merchant in Sun City but it was too hectic for him, so he brought his family here instead. They're trying to grow an orchard, at the base of Skymning". Lorai really seemed to know everyone, or at least know them by name, and they all seemed to know her. It was more intimidating than comforting. Kael didn't want anyone to know who he had been, and without that, he didn't know who he was.

 

The blacksmith's house was suprisingly charming. It was not a shack made from driftwood like most of the other structures in the village, but a building of light colored stone, like homes were in Sun City or in Exile. Green vines grew up one side of the house, and smoke rose from the two chimneys, one set in either end of the rectangular building. Surrounding the house was a small garden, painstakingly tended to, and from a gnarled oak tree hung two ropes, connected at the bottom by a plank.

 

Kael let go of Lorai's hand and approached the plank, watching it sway in the wind. He cautiously reached out to touch it. Ryca followed him, while Lorai went to knock on the saltwashed, pale door.

 

"It's a swing," Ryca said. "We had some at the orphanage, out in the yard."

 

Kael pulled on one of the ropes and let go, watching the plank swing back and forth. "What do you do with it?" He asked.

 

Ryca let out a choked whimper, and he turned to her in alarm, worried that she was sick, or that he'd said something wrong again. For a moment, her face looked pained, and then she laughed. "You sit on it. Here."

 

He stood back and she had a seat, handing her walking stick for Kael to hold. The plank was low to the ground, and her legs bent awkwardly, her knees halfway up to her chest. She grabbed hold of the ropes on either side of her, and used her long legs to swing herself back and forth, soon picking up enough momentum to lift her legs up. She flew back and forth so gracefully, her skirts and short, wavy hair caught in the wind. Ryca laughed, and it sounded so pure.

 

She slowed down soon, stopping the swing with her feet once she was back on the ground. Her face was flushed pink and her eyes glittered, and she breathed heavier than before. "Gods, I haven't done that in a long time. Do you want to try it?" She stood up, for a moment forgetting her injured leg and stumbling as she placed her weight on it. Kael quickly gave her the crutch, and she steadied herself.

 

"Can I?" Kael asked nervously. Seeing her fly about in such a way... it made him nervous. "What if I fall?"

 

"You can go slow at first. You won't fall very far, then."

 

Kael nodded and mimicked what Ryca had done. He took a seat on the plank, grabbing onto the left rope firmly. His balance was a little offset, but he had his feet planted firmly onto the ground below. Ryca walked around to stand behind him.

 

"Now move. Roll your feet."

 

Kael obeyed, planting his toes into the ground and pushing himself back. He shook, his grip tightening more, before he took a deep breath and lifted his feet off the ground. He instantly fell forward, no, swung, as gravity brought the swing down again and the momentum threw it further up. Kael sucked his breath in and tensed up when the ground disappeared from underneath him for a moment. He jerked on the rope, throwing the swing into unbalance, and he came back jerkily.

 

"Lean back to keep moving," Ryca adviced.

 

Kael obeyed, his palm wet with sweat, and he toppled right off the swing, falling back on the dirt below with his legs in the air, knees hooked around the swing still.

 

"Kael!" Ryca gasped. Kael burst into laughter. He wore his chain under his clothes, and the large metal links dug into his back. He was staring up at the green foliage above, and the blue skies dotted with clouds above that, and for a moment he had thought he was going to die.

 

"Prince Kael, winterchild and tithe, survivor of uprisings, illness, grievous injury and attemped self murders, dead by swing," he said in the monotone voice of a priest, mimicking the proceedings of a memorial service. "You can blow the horns now, Ryca." He burst into hysterics again, clutching at his side as his stomach ached. He hadn't laughed so hard, not ever.

 

Ryca stared down at him, flabbergasted at first, and then she too cracked up, before bending down to help him back up, lifting him behind the shoulders to put him back on the swing. "Of all the seats in the world to kill you," she muttered.

 

"They should break the throne down and replace it with one of these. Real blood for the tithe," Kael grinned, making sure his feet were planted firmly on the ground before letting go of the rope to rub at the back of his head. Uninjured but a little sore.

 

Ryca cringed. "You remember that."

 

"What?"

 

"Those words."

 

Kael begun to swing again. Ryca stepped aside. He didn't let go of the rope or lean too far back this time. Eventually, Ryca begun to push gently, each time he moved back within her reach. "I have dreams. I'll see or hear some detail of it. Things I didn't remember. I was drugged."

 

Ryca nodded. "You were."

 

Kael didn't respond. The wind on his face, in his tangled hair, untouched by hands and brushes since Ryca took his braid out for him, and borrowed clothes, felt too good. He held on tightly, with his hand and with his knees, and though he didn't go very high or very fast, he closed his eyes and pretended to fly. His hood blew back, his chain beat lightly against his back with each swing, but he didn't mind. He pretended it was a farewell, remembered how it felt so that he would know what a relief it would be to get rid of it. On the way back against Ryca, his matted locks fell in front of his face, completely cutting off his already blurry, poor vision. When she pushed him forward, toward the endless blue ocean and sky, it flew back behind him. Two figures, one known and one unfamiliar, stepped into his vision.

 

Kael dug his feet into the soil below to stop the swing, and stood. But the stranger with Lorai didn't seem angry that Kael had been using his swing. His broad, bearded face lit up in a warm smile. His eyes looked kind, maybe a little sad. His dark hair was matted into several long braids, then tied back in a bun on top of his head. He wore a leather apron over stained, repeatedly repaired clothing. His arms were bare and furry with dark hair, spotted with burns. He took off his large leather gloves, folded them together, and stuffed them into a pocket in the front of his apron. He stuck out his hand. "Calem, nice to meet'cha."

 

Kael glanced at Lorai, who nodded at him, smiling at Calem's side. Kael stepped forward and held out his left hand. Calem blushed under his thick moustaches and exchanged his right hand for his left. Kael's pale hand disappeared entirely in his strong, dark one. Calem's touch was warm and firm. "Kael. Sorry for using your swing."

 

"Taniel knows how to share. And this young lady here?" He turned to Ryca.

 

Ryca forced a shaky smile, bowing her head in a nod and actually taking his hand, though she discreetly tried to wipe it on her skirts when he wasn't looking. "Ryca. This tree... it's really old, but strong still." She awkwardly changed the subject, petting the tree the swing was hanging from.

 

"Yep. This was, uh, this is Vesti's family's old house, one of his great great grandmothers planted that tree there. Vesti's father was the old blacksmith in Skymning. Vesti wasn't much for it, he was more the huntin' type. I was his dad's apprentice, and, uh, well." Calem rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, sniffling a little.

 

Lorai patted the heavyset man on the back and continued for him. "Calem and Vesti adopted Taniel, and Vesti hung that swing up for him."

 

Calem sighed heavily. "Enough with that now. That thing looks mighty uncomfortable. Let's get it off yer neck, yeah?" He sounded so cheerful suddenly, nodding back toward the house, where the door remained open. A smell of freshly baked apple pie wafted out, making Kael's mouth water.

 

"Yeah," Kael agreed. He and Ryca followed Calem and Lorai inside.

 

The cabin opened up into a kitchen with a table, four mismatched wooden chairs, and a woodburning stove built into the wall. A sofa by the wall was folded out into a bed, and another mattress was piled messily on top of that. The cabin's other room was the smithy itself, separated from the main room by a long, wide hallway with a sand floor. "Fire safety," Calem explained as he opened the heavy door into the smithy. The heat inside was almost unbearable, and the smell of pie grew stronger. On a stone surface above the fire, two pies were baking in their pans. Calem put his gloves back on and took them from the hot stone, setting them down on a table in the far corner instead.

 

"This is where it all happens," Calem said, as though giving them a tour.

 

Kael looked around, seeing mostly fish hooks and spear tips, a few knives, buckets full of nails. On the walls hung tools. A spare bellows, large tongs, hammers. Against the wall leaned a heavy sledgehammer. Kael's right arm throbbed in agony. He grasped at his stump and pressed closer to the wall behind him.

 

"Come up closer so I can see what I'm workin' with here," Calem said, waving Kael closer to the fire. He couldn't tug his eyes away from the hammer as he did so, staring past Calem.

 

"Ah... ye mind if I...?" Calem asked, before brushing Kael's tangled hair off his shoulders and sweeping it up into a loose bun like the one on Calem's head. Kael felt naked, with his bruised neck and steel collar exposed. But he stood still, silent, drifting.

 

Calem walked around him, tutting and humming. He gently took hold of the steel ring, tugging a little, rotating it around Kael's neck. Lorai and Ryca watched silently from the doorway. Kael sensed their eyes on him, but didn't meet their gazes.

 

"Here's a seam, just barely. Another in the back. How was this sealed?" Calem wanted to know. Kael wanted to respond that he didn't know. It came out a dry croak. His right arm throbbed so much it was making his eyes water.

 

"Traditionally," Lorai said, "Is closes the shackles with his claws. The priest acting as the god in the ritual wears these special gloves."

 

"So it's a chemical reaction?" Ryca wondered. "Some substance on the glove, creating heat upon contact?"

 

"No matter," grunted Calem. "It'll come off all the same."

 

He left Kael to stand there, and turned to walk toward the sledgehammer leaning on the wall. His arm throbbed violently. His headache flared up. Calem reached out.

 

Kael hit the floor with a cry, curling up on his right side and shielding his head with his other hand. "Please don't!"

 

But there was no whistle of weight being swung through the air, no sickening, meaty impact, no crack of bones, no explosion of pain. Kael heard nothing over his own rapid breathing, sensed nothing but the sharp taste of bile at the back of his throat.

 

A large, warm hand settled on his back, right between his shoulders. He flinched, and it began rubbing slow, steady circles. Calem said nothing, just stroked him. Crouched on the floor next to him, until Kael's breathing steadied. He turned onto his stomach, breaking the oddly soothing contact between this stranger's hand and his back, and pushed himself up again. When he looked up, Ryca was staring in horror, barely held back by Lorai. And there sat Calem, joining Kael on the dirt floor, holding the largest cutters. Their place on the wall, next to where the sledgehammer still leaned, unused and unbloodied, was empty.

 

"This'll be fast if ye don't move. Turn yer head to the side." Calem instructed calmly.

 

Kael did, turning his blind side to Calem. He imagined his sorrowful, soft face furrow in concentration. He felt warm fingers slide under the collar around his neck, felt the steel be adjusted again, heard the rattle of the chain.

 

"One of ye girls help out," Calem said. Ryca hurried forward, Kael could tell it was her by the light sound of her steps on the dirt floor, together with the wooden sound of her crutch. She knelt by his head. Kael closed his good eye, and waited. He felt Ryca's cooler fingertips work their way under the steel, between the collar and his skin, and hold it up. He heard Calem adjust his position, then a grunt of exertion.

 

Clip. Another adjustment. Another grunt. Clip.

 

Ryca rotated the collar around Kael's neck again. The chain rattled more, being pulled along over his body, its weight settling over his heart. He took a deep breath.

 

Clip. Clip.

 

Ryca pulled away. Calem's heavy steps moved aside. Kael opened his eye and turned his head, stared up at the stone ceiling. He took a deep breath, then another, before he sat up. The chain rattled and fell to the floor. The cold weight around his neck was gone. He touched his skin where it had rested against it, it was sore and clammy and too sensitive to touch. He felt some abrasions, more likely from rubbing against the steel than from any fault of Calem's.

 

Calem hung the cutters back on the wall and approached, holding his hand out for Kael to help him up. Kael let himself be pulled back onto his feet. He couldn't find any words. He glanced back to the dirt floor. There was the faint impression of his own body in the dirt, and the collar, cut in two halves. He stared hard, trying to memorize the image.

 

"That's, uh, that's icesteel, ain't it?" Calem asked awkwardly. Kael looked back at him, slowly pulling his hand from his grip. He nodded and croaked out a response.

 

"Yeah. It is. From, from Frost, I think."

 

"There's not a whole lotta pure, old icesteel left. Less now, with the, uh, with the whole... Jaws, frozen bay, thing," Calem continued on. Kael began to catch his drift, and his face split into a wide smile. He could even feel the left corner of his mouth twitch upward. He had worried about repaying Calem, but it was so easy now.

 

"You can have it. If you think you can use it for something. As my thanks. Take it."

 

Calem's eyes watered and he pulled Kael in for a brief, but overwhelming, hug. Kael coughed when he was freed. Ryca gave him one of her ever more frustrating, worried looks.

 

"Thank you," Calem smiled. "You got good steel, over there. And somethin' this old... if I smelt it down, it'd make somethin' real strong and beautiful, I'm sure."

 

Kael nodded. "Please. Make it into something beautiful for me."

 

 

 


	10. Last Resort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Bastille - Sleepsong](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cuR_Vi6vas&list=PL5ERIjGnzWbLg2P0JuGn9BRFtl7J3iesy)

They said farewell and thank you again to Calem, who took a break in fawning over his ancient icesteel chain to give Kael another warm hug, and continued on to Lorai's brother's house. 

"Vesti disappeared some years ago, just soon after I came here. I only met him a few times," Lorai explained, leading the way toward Tam's brother's house. "Calem has been caring for Taniel on his own since then. The rest of us help, of course. Especially Tam's brother."

"Why did he leave?" Kael asked. If he had someone as caring and warm as Calem there to love him, he'd never leave unless he was dragged away. 

"He was captured. Lisie saw it. He was hunting, killed a deer to feed the village. If he's still alive, he'd be locked up in Brightcastle or Sandpoint," Lorai explained. "Tam always keeps an eye out on people, floating in the ocean. Sometimes people escape Brightcastle, and then they float over here, like your friends did."

Kael fidgeted with his right sleeve, toying with the decorative stitching along the hem. It hung shorter than his left sleeve, tied off as it was below his stump. His right arm still ached with the memory of a sledgehammer. Like so much else, it was a ghost that could hurt him just as well as real injuries. His head ached less, though.

"Did Calem do something to scare you?" Lorai asked in concern, finally bringing up his breakdown in the forge. Kael had waited for it, but he had anticipated Ryca would be the one to bring it up first.

Kael shook his head and turned his seeing eye to Lorai with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. 

"Calem was nice. I like him. I just saw that hammer, and it made my head go weird." He smoothed his gown out. The sun settled behind a thick layer of clouds, and Kael pushed his hood back in relief.

"Oh," Lorai nodded. "I understand."

Kael wondered if she really did, but he didn't feel like questioning her. 

Ryca cleared her throat on his other side. "You like Calem?" Her tone was somewhat cold and guarded. It sounded like Marett had, when he demanded to know more about what had happened while Kael was gone. When he wanted to know if Medin had touched him. Jealousy, was the word Kael's mind settled for. He didn't look at her and had to gasp for breath a few times before he could answer.

"He was nice. He looked sad. I'm not gonna kiss him, if you're worried."

He heard Ryca's steps, the light footfalls and the wooden thud of her walking stick, stop. He kept walking, and then Lorai paused too. Kael turned around and followed Lorai's example, looking back at Ryca.

Her head was down, her face concealed by her thick, dark hair. It was growing out already. Her shoulders were shaking, and she clutched the crutch in front of her until her knuckles turned white. 

"I'm going home," Ryca spat out between hitched breaths. "I'm going back to Dim. You can stay here, since you love everyone here so much. Since they're so much better than me."

Kael didn't know what to say. He didn't even know what Ryca was so upset about. He felt cold, his heart sinking into his stomach and lying there like a heavy lump, making him feel nauseous. He knew Ryca meant to leave. He had hoped she'd stay a little longer.

"I want you here," he said, his voice cracking too. "Ryca, I care about you a lot. I don't know what I'd do if you'd left."

"You'll find out! You'll do something, won't you?!" Her voice was rising again, and she was tearing at herself. Pinching her thin arms through her borrowed clothes. "You'll live, or you'll drown yourself. It's not my business. I can't help you."

The words felt like an arrow to his chest, just narrowy missing his heart since it had already sunk. Kael let out a pained wheeze, his breath escaping his lungs through the wound. He staggered, but fell back against Lorai's steady frame. She wrapped a thick, heavy arm around his shoulders to support him. It felt safe, and he could breathe again, with some effort.

"Ryca, if you want to go home, I'll come with you," Kael said. Lorai grasped him a little tighter.

"It's not fair!" Ryca snapped. Her lips were trembling, her eyes bloodshot and with heavy bags beneath them. Kael hadn't noticed before, but she looked even more worn out than she had in Ishem. 

"I can't take care of you anymore! I can't sleep, I can't eat, Aderia's dead or gone, not that she needed me to begin with, she'd rather have her prince. You'd rather go to complete strangers than to me. I'm useless. I'm completely useless to you and I couldn't save you at all, and while I'm busy trying so hard to help you, I can't save myself either." It seemed the anger left her all at once, replaced with weariness. She wiped at her tears angrily, almost smacking herself in the face as she did.

Kael gently pushed Lorai away and approached Ryca, his body tense. She gripped her cane so tightly he half expected her to lash out at him with it, if she came close. Her tongue was the weapon he feared more than any, though, and he'd had her dagger pressed to his throat once. 

She didn't lash out. She shrunk away, sobbing. Kael placed his hand over hers on the handle of the walking stick, closing his fingers gently over hers. 

"Go home, Ryca. Rest. Take care of yourself." He wanted her there, yes. But he was so selfish. Like with losing Aderia, he hadn't considered her situation. Her injuries, her humiliations, and just how deeply it seemed his suffering had affected her, too. "I'll stay with Lorai for now. I'll come see you when we both feel better."

Ryca nodded and tried to speak, but her words turned into blubbering nonesense and a high pitched wail instead. Kael wrapped his arm around her waist and leaned his head on her chest, giving her a firm hug. "Thank you," he whispered against her rapidly beating heart. "Write to me often, okay? I'll learn to write, so I can write you back."

Ryca nodded silently. He felt her motions through her body. After a moment when all he heard was her slowing breathing, she began to shift. Her walking stick pressed into his hip, and he stepped back, wiping at his own face. She wiped her sleeve over her eyes. "I'll find my way back myself," she said to Lorai. "I don't feel like meeting anyone else today."

"Take care," Lorai said. 

"I'll see you later," Kael added. Ryca nodded, her face already turned away, as she retraced their steps back through the village on her own.

Kael stared after her for a moment, squinting to see her as she grew ever more distant. Eventually, Lorai broke the spell by rubbing her hand across his back, gently guiding him back onto the dirt road.

Tam must have seen them coming, as she opened the door before they were even on the wooden ramp leading up to the cottage, this one made from wood planks with a solid stone foundation and a roof of reeds.

When she saw that there were only two of them she hurried down the ramp. She took a long look at Kael's face. Since seeing Is, something about Tam had changed. She looked at Kael with gratitude, or reverence. It was a little unsettling. He didn't want to be revered. He looked away and his tears with his sleeve, offering her a mild smile. 

Tam knew better than Lorai how stressed Ryca had been lately, since she was often the one staying up at night with them. She said nothing of it, but instead split her face into a beaming smile, so much more expressive than Kael was used to see on her.

"You look different." She touched his neck, where there was only healing skin, not metal. "How's it feel?"

"Lighter," Kael replied. "Quieter." He took a few steps to show it, though maybe he was the only one to notice the silence in place of the constant ringing of metal links, as he'd grown used to since waking up after the wedding.

Tam nodded. "Good. The kids are here, so..." She glanced back at the open door of the house. Kael looked past her to see Sunny and Taniel peer around the doorframe curiously. He understood Tam meant it as a warning. Lorai had told her of the curiosity of the children, he was sure.

"That's okay. We're friends," Kael said a little louder, giving a wave to the two peeking children.

Sunny grinned and waved back, and the two ducked back into the house.

The home was larger than Calem's and had two rooms on either side of the front door, a wide hallway, and two bedrooms in the back. In the kitchen, by a large oak table, sat Tam's brother. He looked just like her, if skinnier and with a beard that almost turned his long face into that of a goat. He sat at the head of the table, and Sunny and Taniel sat across from one another, on either side of him, each with a stick of charcoal and a sheet of parchment. Each one's sheet was full of scribbles and sprawling, rickety handwriting that made his head hurt just trying to decipher it. Reading was hard enough with the neat, consistent ink of his storybooks. He wondered briefly if those, too, had burned down in the inferno with the rest of Exile.

"Time for a break. Go outside and play," Tam's brother said, ushering the children away.

Sunny jumped up swiftly and ran up to Kael, grabbing hold of his hand with both of hers and tugging. "Come on, let's go out and play!" 

Kael laughed nervously, shaking his head and gently pulling his hand away. It was covered in smudged charcoal fingerprints. "We can play later, okay?"

Sunny pouted and looked like she was going to argue, but Taniel came running back in holding up a leather ball. "Sunny, you start as the guarder today!" 

The blacksmith's son ran out of the kitchen again, and Sunny shrieked, running after him. "Nu-uh, you're the guarder, I'm gonna be the kicker!"

Their arguing continued outside, muffled once Tam gently closed the front door behind them. 

"Jorel, this is Kael." Tam introduced him.

Tam's brother, Jorel, moved toward him smoothly. At first it startled Kael, because Jorel didn't rise from his seat to walk around the table. His chair came along with him, and only once it had rounded the table did Kael understand. Jorel's cushioned wooden chair had been fitted with wheels like a wagon, which he rolled forward using his hands. He steered up to Kael and held out a calloused left hand.

Kael tore his eyes away and shook Jorel's hand. "Hi," he said awkwardly. "That's amazing."

Jorel's eyes lit up and he laughed. "I know, right? My wife made it for me. Lisie. She's incredible. She's out on the farm right now. Spring came sooner than expected, so it's time to sow already."

For a moment Kael wished there was a way to make a working arm from wood and wheels, but he pushed the thought aside. "I didn't know you... uh..." He glanced down at the chair.

"And I'm sure there's a lot I didn't know about you either," Jorel didn't miss a beat as he continued to the stove. "Tea?"

"No thank you," Kael responded, as Tam guided him to take a seat at the table. He hadn't sat in a chair since his throne, as Tam and Lorai didn't have room for a table. The carved wooden chairs in Jorel's home were far more comfortable.

"I'd like some, please," Lorai said, having a seat across from Kael, next to Tam. 

Jorel balanced the cups on a tray in his lap, serving Lorai and himself before scooting Sunny's chair out of the way to sit next to Kael. 

"I finished a few patches for you already," Jorel spoke after a few sips of his tea. "I'm not sure if you'll like them, but you can look at them if you'd like."

Kael turned to look at Jorel, nodding. "Thank you. I'd like that."

"If they're too ugly, you can blame me. They're my designs. I'm sure Jorel's handiwork is flawless as always," Lorai laughed softly.

Kael felt his face heat up. "I'm not gonna think they're ugly!" He said hurriedly, horrified that she'd say such a thing. But the others just chuckled.

"I'll go get them," Tam grinned and hurried off into the hallway. Kael poked at a dent in the wooden table, rubbing his finger along the polished wood grain.

Tam returned with a small wooden chest, grasped in her hands. It was no larger than a jewelry box, and had a beautiful patterned ribbon wrapped around it.

"Lisie made the box for you," Jorel explained. "I made the ribbon."

Kael's eye watered. Something warm ran down his half-numb left cheek again. He wiped at his face again. "Thank you."

"Aw, don't do that. Open it up."

Kael tugged on one of the ends of the ribbon and it came undone smoothly. He lifted the lid and took out the first knitted square, admiring it in the sunlight now filtering in through the window facing the table. The stitching felt smooth and soft under his thumb. It was just a simple, small square with one long braided thread extending from each corner. This one was a sky blue, the next a rosy pink, and one had the smallest, most delicate flower embroidery all around the edge. 

Kael looked down at each of them, laid out on the table. "Thank you," He whispered breathlessly. He picked one up and held it to his deadened eye, and instantly he realized the problem. The soaring happiness he'd felt a moment ago came crashing down instantly. He sensed their eyes on him as he began to tremble, pressing his head down to pin the eyepatch in place over his eye with his stump. His fingers shook, his fingertips were so cold and turned numb. He found one of the threads and brought it around the back of his head, then struggled to find the other. He was trying to make a one-handed knot when the tears came, the despair clawing at his insides like a hungry monster.

"Shh, shh," Tam murmured as she came around the table, helping him out by tying the eyepatch in place behind him. "There."

Kael's shoulder's slumped. He really was pathetic, having a panic attack over something so simple. But if it was so simple, then why couldn't he do it for himself? He always needed help, always needed someone to help him get dressed, to braid his hair. At least he'd regained enough strength to feed himself again.

"I'm sorry," Jorel placed a hand on his shaking shoulder. "I'll think of a better way to attach them, next time. I didn't know."

Kael nodded. Trying to calm himself. "Thank you. I love them," he sniffled.

After that, Lorai and Tam attempted to keep the conversation going. Jorel politely asked questions, but Kael didn't feel like talking anymore. He felt so ungrateful, and the more they prodded him to engage, the more he withdrew. Lorai and Tam said their goodbyes to Jorel, Sunny and Taniel. Kael was quiet, staring at nothing. The three returned home soon after, and long before the planned dinner together once Lisie returned from the farm.

When they came back to the shack, Ryca was already gone.


	11. In The Ground Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Paper Chase - Said The Spider To The Fly]()

Tam and Lorai had a specific rhythm, a routine that seemed to persist most days. Tam would wake early, quietly climbing down the ladder and stepping over Kael, where he slept (or pretended to sleep) on his mattress on the floor inside in the small sideroom off of the kitchen. She would eat, feed the three dogs, check on her fishing equipment, and then take the boat out to sea before the sun rose.

 

Lorai woke later, yawning loudly as she climbed down. She would begin to make noise in the kitchen, cooking herself and Kael breakfast and making tea. The scent would eventually drag Kael from under his blankets. He would choose one of his gowns hanging on the wall, alongside Lorai's and Tam's clothing. They were hand-me-downs and most were very simple, but comfortable. They had been taken in to fit his body, much thinner than Lorai's ample frame. He preferred loose dresses to anything else not only because he was used to wearing them, but also because he could easily dress or undress himself as he wished, simply tugging the fabric over his head rather than find himself at the mercy and whims of someone else again.

 

He would join Lorai for breakfast, and then usually wash up either in the cool stream behind the shack, or head downhill to the ocean, avoiding his reflection as usual. His deadened eye didn't bother him much now, it didn't ache anymore and he no longer saw any floating ghosts in it. That side of his vision was entirely dark, with or without the eye-patches Jorel had made for him. The new patches attached more easily, with an adjustable sliding knot in the back so he could simply slip them on, then adjust the fit as needed with his one hand.

 

Some days, Lorai would clean the shack in the morning. Sweeping the floor, shaking out the rugs and blankets and cushions, taking dirty clothing down to the stream to wash them. Kael would often simply watch her, sitting nearby. Sometimes silent, sometimes they would talk. Then, Lorai would go to her studio, a smaller shack outside their home. She had tried to talk Kael into standing model for a portrait, but he refused, and since then he didn't go near when she was painting, just in case.

 

Kael would play with the dogs and pet them. He'd wander off to the stream, or to the beach, watching the ocean if the weather was mild and the sun had mercy on him that day. If not, he'd sit in the shack, staring at the wall, or at Laela's smiling face, or at nothing at all. Is spoke to him, sometimes. Sometimes Kael replied. He wanted to go play on Calem's swing. He wanted to visit Jorel again. He wanted to meet Lisie, who Tam spoke so highly of. He wanted to ask Jorel to teach him how to write, so he could write to Ryca. He wanted her to come back.

 

Mostly, he did nothing at all. Then Tam would return home, late in the afternoon, with her catch of the day. She would head into the village to give some of it away, getting bread or vegetables in return, and then they would eat dinner. Tam and Lorai would retire to bed together, and Kael would again be left alone with his thoughts, staring up into darkness.

 

_You should sleep_ , Is would say.

 

_Don't you think I'm trying?_ Kael responded, turning over on his right side and letting out a sigh. He ran his hand through his hair. It got caught in the tangles, and he had to carefully pull it out again. His smooth, long hair had become a matted nest in the weeks since Ryca had left. It was so dark inside the shack. Another new moon, another month since the wedding.

 

"Happy fourth luniversary," Kael mumbled at the ceiling.

 

_We are not truly married_ , Is responded.  _That rite had nothing to do with me._

 

"I wasn't talking to you," Kael snapped back and rolled over onto his left, as if turning his back on the presence buzzing behind his dead eye.

 

_Don't speak to the dead,_ Is chided.  _They might be listening._

 

Kael pulled his blanket up over his head. Is finally seemed to get the hint, and went silent. He was almost asleep when he heard it. At first, he believed it was all in his head, a sound ghost to match the shadows in the corners of his vision. It was merely a sigh at first, nearly inaudible through his blanket and with the whisper of the sea filtering in from outside. Then hushed, almost melodic moans reached his left ear. His skin grew hot and began to itch, beads of cold sweat forming and soaking his sleepshirt. But no coarse whispers, rolling 'r's or deep growls followed, and it wasn't a memory. The only sweat he could smell was his own, and he didn't taste blood or sickeningly sweet alcohol on his tongue. His long, chewed up fingernails dug into his palm and he sat up, trying to still his hammering heart.

 

"Shh, stay still," a soft voice whispered somewhere above his head. The words made his heart sink but the timbre of his voice pulled him back into himself, and he could feel the mattress beneath him once more. 

 

"But that tickles," Tam whispered. Her voice was a little rougher and lower than Lorai's.

 

"I've missed this," Lorai responded, her voice a little more muffled. The response from Tam was a wild giggle, loud enough to startle the dogs sleeping in the kitchen. Kael heard them perk up, then lay their heads back down onto the floor.

 

Another moan, another hush. And then the sound of an impact, skin against skin, a low thud.

 

"Ooow," Lorai whined. Kael struggled to his feet, reaching for the ladder. He grasped a rung as high up as he could reach, ready to pull himself up there if he needed, ready to interfere. 

 

"Shh, shh, I'm sorry," Tam whispered in a rush. "I didn't mean to kick you, I'm just-"

 

"Sensitive?" Lorai giggled. Kael heard them shift up there, fabric rustling, and then Tam moaned again. His racing heart slowed once more and he settled back onto the floor. He'd been halfway up the ladder to the loft, and he didn't even know how he'd climbed one-handed. The angry buzzing in his head calmed into a hum.

 

The ladder creaked loudly when Kael stepped off it and he stopped, holding his breath. The hushed moans and giggles above his head stilled for a moment. When no other sound followed, they began once more.

 

Kael sat down on the floor, his whole body aching in confusion. He tried not to listen, and he was so tired, but each new sound from the women above him startled him awake. The adrenaline and nausea settled into an uneasy, warm throbbing. Kael dug his thumb and forefinger into his thigh and pinched hard, trying to distract himself. It didn't work.

 

Before too long, the sounds upstairs rose in volume and then settled, replaced by heavy breathing and then gentle snoring and sleepy, warm mumbles. Eventually Kael fell asleep, back propped up against a corner, his chin slumped against his chest. It wasn't as cold as his throne had been, but he ached all the same. He rested fitfully, and he dreamt.

 

The next day, the routine had been interrupted. Lorai woke first, long after the sun had breached the horizon and begun its slow crawl across the sky. She was already in the kitchen, humming happily as she made breakfast. The delicious scent of fresh pan-cooked bread filled Kael's nostrils. He couldn't remember his dreams, but he knew that he'd had them. His entire body felt sore, as did the inside of his head. Sleeping so awkwardly was only part of it, he knew, and it made him glad he could not remember his nightmares.

 

He climbed to his feet and changed out of his sleepshirt. He was nude and struggling more than usual to pull one of his new gowns over his head when Tam descended the ladder. She had no reaction to seeing him like that, other than to help where the hem of the dress had gotten stuck, easing it down over his shoulders patiently. Kael's face burned. Tam was only wearing underwear still, and her nipples were hard and dark against tan skin. She smelled of sweat. 

 

"How did you sleep?" she asked. Her brown eyes bored their way into him. Kael looked down.

 

"Okay," he lied. 

 

Tam frowned. "Okay. Nothing... woke you up, or anything?"

 

Kael shook his head.

 

Tam nodded. "Okay." He could tell she didn't believe him, but she pulled on a tunic and walked ahead into the kitchen. He glanced very briefly at himself in the polished brass mirror on the wall. He looked feral. His hair was sticking out every which way, matted and tangled since he refused to touch it, and reacted even stronger to Tam and Lorai, whenever they tried to tame it for him. It had always been Marett's job. 

 

Kael stumbled out into the kitchen and sat down at the low table.

 

"No patch today?" Lorai asked while pouring his tea for him, then leaning across the table to kiss Tam a good morning.

 

"No fishing today?" Kael shot back at Tam, dodging the question.

 

Tam raised an eyebrow at him, accepting his challenge. "No hairbrush today either? Soon we'll have to shear you like a sheep."

 

"Tam!" Lorai exclaimed in a sharp tone.

 

But Kael actually laughed. The resistance made something bubble up in him. Something new, something other than fatigue. "Okay."

 

"...okay?" Tam repeated.

 

Kael nodded. "Yeah. Cut it all off."

 

Tam and Lorai exchanged glances for a moment, then looked back to Kael. He stared at them defiantly. Daring them to tell him he couldn't, that he had to keep his hair long and pretty like Laela. Daring them to hold him down and brush it all out, tearing roughly at the tangles to punish him for something that wasn't even his fault.

 

But they didn't. Both their faces split in pleased smiles. For a moment, they seemed to move in such unison that it was a little frightening. "If that's what you want," Tam said.

 

"It's what I want."

 

"I've never seen you with short hair," Lorai sighed, almost dreamily.

 

"Neither have I," Kael responded. The ghost of fingers combed through his hair, ran across his scalp. He shook his head quickly, and the sensation vanished.

 

"I've heard that cutting your hair off and burning it can ward off bad spirits," Lorai said in her hazy, sage-like tone.

 

Tam raised an eyebrow at her. "I don't think that's true."

 

"It's worth a try," Kael said. So Tam stopped arguing, and Lorai looked pleased.

 

Kael, who had been picking at his food and barely eating since Ryca left them, ate with vigor that morning. After breakfast, it was time for the funeral rite.

 

Lorai and Tam brought Kael down to the beach. Tam brought one of her good knives, and Lorai brought an old kitchen rag and a wooden bowl to serve as a boat. Lorai had a seat on one of the rounded rocks strewn along the shoreline. It was overcast, so Kael did not need to squint much. He shrugged out of his gown. They were alone, and he settled down naked between Lorai's leg, his back to her as he looked out over the ocean.

 

It was a familiar pose, if only instead of the ocean before him lay the Spire gardens or his own little glass garden, a wrought iron cage with panes of glass allowing the light in while trapping him inside it. He leaned back into soft, thick thighs and closed his eye. He reached up with his hand to force the left lid shut as well. It was like that eye belonged to someone else, for all the good it did him.

 

"Did you want to say something, Kael?" Lorai asked him gently. Tam stood by and watched, silent and still, respectful even if she did not understand.

 

Kael was silent for a moment, thinking. There were so many words, so many thoughts, conflicting and spiralling, angry and desperate and sad. He sucked in a deep breath and pulled himself back from the whirlpool before he was sucked in and drowned.

 

"I'll be happy when I stop missing you," he whispered.

 

_Don't speak to the dead,_ Is repeated.

 

_I want him to hear me_ , Kael thought back.

 

Lorai cut away at his hair with steady, careful motions. The blade in her hand was so sharp it could have slit his throat and he would not have realized until he bled out. It did feel like he was bleeding out. Each lock and clump of white blond hair that fell onto the cloth in his lap released some of the pressure inside him. Steadily the weight on his head fell away, like the icesteel crown, like the chain around his neck.

 

Lorai smoothed her work out, then ran her fingers through his hair. Her fingers felt so different, but they scratched an itch deep inside him, some thirst he hadn't realized he had until then. He leaned back into her with a sigh. She was so warm behind him, and he settled against her softness. She sat the blade down on the rocks beside them and folded in around him, her arms embracing him lightly. He inhaled deeply. She smelled like tea and earth and spice. He let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. It came out like a sob. Lightly, she pressed her lips to the soft spot on his scalp, brushing them against the scar there.

 

That throbbing heat returned for a moment. Kael squirmed a little, and she let him go right away, moving back as gently and confidently as she'd moved in. She reached around him and folded up the rag in his lap, wrapping his hair up in it and tying it off with some string.

 

Tam stepped forward, holding out the wooden bowl to Kael. He nodded at her and stood, a few stray strands of hair falling from his shoulders and getting caught in the breeze, dancing away across the sky like wayward snowflakes. He wondered how far they'd go. Maybe they'd cross the Belt and return to Frost. Maybe they'd land in Exile. Perhaps they'd seek their way across the ocean to Dim, or seek out Aderia, or Medin.

 

Kael carried the bowl containing the parcel of his hair to the waterline and crouched down. Tam followed and pulled a flint and steel from the pouch at her belt. She struck the steel a few times, until the sparks caught the rag. The parcel caught fire. Dark smoke rose from it, some small imitation of the fury of the land as Eld went up in flames and covered all of Ishem in darkness and soot. 

 

Kael's fingers shook as he lowered the bowl into the waves and let it go. At first it came back to him, before lurching and pulling back out into the ocean. He knelt on the rocky shore, watching it get further and further out, until the slender smoke pillar was too small to make out against the cloudy skies and the steel gray waves.

 

"Are you ready?" Lorai asked.

 

Kael nodded and stood. His knees were bruised from kneeling on the rocky ground, but he'd survived so much worse.  


 

 

 


	12. Til Your Fingers Bleed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Veronicas - You Ruin Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKeVd0zU5Vc)
> 
> Please heed the warnings above ~

Kael's head was pounding. The parchment sitting before him on the table was blindingly bright in the sunlight filtering in through the window. He grasped the stick of charcoal tightly in his trembling hand, as his teacher sat close on his right side, watching his hand like a hawk.

 

"Now, if we write the letter like this instead, it changes the sound. This little circle here, it draws the sound out," Jorel explained patiently. His voice was gentle, but Kael could hear the frustration behind it.

 

"I know my letters. I've been taught to read," Kael turned to Jorel rapidly, wanting to... grab him. Hit him. His headache wasn't getting any better, and Jorel was taking it too slow. He was being too indulgent.

 

"In Ishemish, yes, but it works a little different here," Jorel said, remaining calm even when Kael lost his patience. It only made Kael's fingers itch more. He gripped the charcoal even tighter, and it snapped in his hand.

 

"I don't care. I don't care what language I write in! I just want to figure this out." Tears were pricking at his eyes. He felt the nausea begin to well up inside him. Jorel rolled his chair back and then closer again, and he wrapped one arm around Kael. He reached for Kael's hand and his rough, calloused hands brushed Kael's skin as his fingers closed around his tight fist.

 

Kael flew to his feet, throwing Jorel's arm off him and wrapping his arm tightly around himself, hiding his charcoal stained hand in his right armpit. "Nevermind. I'm just stupid. I'm not gonna get it."

 

"Kael," Jorel started, his tone pleading.

 

Kael slammed the door on his way out. He wasn't sure where to go, but his feet seemed to have their own ideas. They took him from Jorel's house, past the fields where Sunny and Taniel were playing, and to the blacksmith. Kael didn't know if Calem was home or not, but settled onto his swing anyway, gently rocking himself back and forth.

 

The oak tree above provided enough shade that the sun didn't hurt him much. He leaned against the left rope lazily, his hand resting in his lap, as he rocked himself with his eyes closed. It felt almost like the ocean, almost like riding a horse. He pinched himself again, digging his thumb into the dark bruises on his upper thighs where he'd relieve his stress or try to ground himself.

 

He simply breathed for a few moments, focusing in on the pain he could control. The pain in his head subsided slowly, and he opened his eye again. There was a blur, tall and brown, in the outskirts of his vision. He turned his head to Calem.

 

"Sorry again," Kael said.

 

"Oh, no, not at all. I'm sorry for starin'. I wasn't expectin' anyone. And, uh..." He gestured vaguely to his head.

 

Kael laughed softly. Maybe he should be feeling on edge around Calem, like Ryca had wanted, but he didn't. "Lorai cut it all off for me. I wasn't taking care of it."

 

"Looks good on ye." Calem said.

 

"I'm getting used to it," Kael responded with a shrug, still rocking slowly back and forth on the swing. He ran his hand through his short hair, readjusting the straps of his eye-patch.

 

"So, uh..." Calem scratched the side of his scruffy face. He seemed very unused to company, perhaps especially a pale foreign prince in a dress. "Yer gonna stay here now, like Lorrie?"

 

Kael shrugged. "I don't have anywhere else to go, really." Except maybe to Dim with Ryca, but he had already put such a burden on her, when she was struggling with things on her own. Or back to Exile, gods forbid, to his siblings. He didn't want to see the city again, let alone the Spires.

 

"It's not a bad place to be," Calem said. "If ye don't mind the isolation."

 

Kael laughed and got off the swing. "The fewer people the better, I think."

 

Calem chuckled. "Gotcha. Figured someone like ye'd rather be left to yer own."

 

Kael raised an eyebrow and his blood ran cold in his veins, wondering what Calem was insinuating. "Someone like me?"

 

Calem took a deep breath. "Wanna come inside?"

 

Kael shrugged but followed along into the warm kitchen, but he remained standing when Calem took a seat, giving Kael a wavering smile. Kael wasn't charmed.

 

"What did you mean, 'someone like me'?"

 

"You've been hurt," Calem said so matter-of-factly.

  
"Yeah, obviously," Kael laughed coldly, waving his nub around to demonstrate. "Sledgehammers kind of do hurt. As do rocks, and blades, and-"

 

"Men," Calem interrupted. "And women. The closer to us, the worse it hurts when they turn on us."

 

"What did Lorai tell you?" Kael hissed, hugging himself tightly.

 

Calem shook his head. "Nothin'. Does she know?"

 

"I don't know," Kael admitted. "I don't know what happened to her, back there. I didn't tell her everything. So I don't know what she thinks."

 

"No one had to tell me. Ye, and that Eryca woman,"

 

"Ryca," Kael corrected.

 

"Ye and that Ryca. It's in the eyes."

 

Kael had a seat across from Calem and stared at him, taking in his faint smile and his eyes.

 

"When I said someone like ye, I meant someone like us," Calem explained. Kael let out a trembling sigh of breath.

 

"Someone broken," he filled in.

 

Calem laughed so suddenly, so sharply, that it startled Kael. "Who told ye that?"

 

"Ryca," Kael said. "She told Marett that he broke me."

 

Calem reached for a tray of sugared buns that sat on the table and pushed it toward Kael. He picked one up and began to rip into it with his fingers, but he didn't eat.

 

"Ye know what happens when yer bones break?" Calem asked.

 

Kael nodded, feeling faint. He remembered the shattering, the pain, waking up weak and pathethic and one arm lighter. "They take them out."

 

Calem sighed heavily. "It's supposed to be, they heal stronger than before. But alright, maybe that wasn't too good a comparison."

 

Kael shook his head. "No, it was pretty awful."

 

"Rude," Calem laughed. "Okay, okay, maybe simplifyin' things isn't the right way to show ye."

 

"I'm not a kid," Kael said, agreeing. "I'm old enough to marry."

 

Calem looked taken back. He frowned. "How old are ye, then? Maybe things work different over there."

 

"Sixteen. Seventeen soon," Kael blushed and looked down. He knew he looked younger than that, and wasn't that the whole point of being a winter candidate? It hadn't been coincidence that the Council had doted more on the younger candidates. He knew that much now.

 

Calem stared for a moment. "Ye look younger."

 

Kael rolled his eye. "That's why we're cut. You can't sacrifice adults."

 

Calem had to rest his head in his hands for a moment, taking a deep steadying breath before he looked up at Kael again. "They cut ye. So ye can't grow up."

 

Kael nodded. "That's the idea, yeah." He felt his headache returning. "And I guess that's why some of the Council decides to join it. Whoever's chosen, prince or princess, is at the mercy of the Council until death."

 

Calem's dark face seemed several shades paler. Kael had to laugh at him. He supposed he should be feeling the same horror, too, but wasn't that the perfect proof of how broken he was? Things that horrified normal people barely worried him.

 

"So this Marett guy..." Calem started.

 

"I guess I owe him," Kael mused out loud. Tracing the wood grain in the table with his fingers. "At least, he didn't let anyone else get close to me."

 

The situation was so surreal it felt like a dream. Kael was watching himself at a distance, drawing patterns across the table with his finger, leaving crumbs and greasy smears of the sweetbread he'd broken apart and left on the surface. Telling a stranger everything, because said stranger had kind eyes. No... that wasn't why. Kael was telling it so cruelly, feeling satisfied each time Calem flinched or looked sick. Calem was weak, he thought, if he couldn't even stand to hear it.

 

"It was funny," Kael heard himself say, "for a man who drank so much sweet rum, he tasted more-"

 

Calem stood up, slamming his palms down on the table. "You should go."

 

Kael felt himself drawn back into his body. He tasted bile at the back of his tongue. He swiftly wiped his hand on his gown and looked down. "I'm sorry. I didn't... I don't know why I..."

 

Calem was shaking and wringing his hands. "It's fine. It's fine, just... please."

 

Kael nodded and hurried out on shaky legs. He ran all the way to the shack, and hid in his corner. Lorai was painting in her studio, the dogs were running around in the field, and Tam was out fishing.

 

Kael was alone and his mind was buzzing, and memories of sounds and touch echoed in his mind. He imagined he could still hear Lorai and Tam, giggling and moaning upstairs. Their noises were almost drowned out by heavy breathing, his own and Marett's, and the feeling of hot air against his neck, against his lips.

 

The heat and the throbbing returned and Kael squeezed his eye shut. He backed up tight against the wall until he sat up straight. He pinched himself, but it didn't work. Rather than release the pressure, the dull pain in his thigh only seemed to make the ache worse.

 

He felt wet tears of despair on his face and reached under his own skirt, spreading his legs and rubbing where the ache felt worst. The pressure was building inside him, right behind the soft, sensitive scarring around his urethra.

 

_I'm sorry_ , he thought.  _Don't curse me_ . Winter children were supposed to keep their hands to themselves, or they'd defile themselves before Is could have them. Before the Council could. Kael was shaking, and each trembling stroke of his fingertips made his stomach clench. He still felt nauseous. He tried to remember the fingers were only his own, and that this was under his own control. He didn't feel like he was in control at all, though. 

 

_I don't care if you touch yourself,_ Is responded in his head. Kael flinched and let out a whine, both in frustration and despair. His teeth were clattering, and he was sobbing by now. 

 

"Please don't look at me right now," Kael gasped.

 

The relief when he felt the pressure and hum at the back of his head recede, signifying that Is was indeed giving him some privacy, was enough to drive him further. It wasn't enough, not yet. He'd often felt frustrated and limited by his missing arm. This felt more urgent, though. More desperate.

 

He rubbed at himself until he felt sore. His thighs and stomach clenched again and again, promising that he was close, but it just was not good enough. His wrist ached and his fingers were beginning to feel numb, and he wouldn't be surprised if he'd made his ten year old scar bleed from the friction.

 

Finally, he gave up, feeling even more broken. He couldn't even make himself feel good. He'd only managed to make himself miserable and sore. The throbbing of his groin and his head was stronger than before, and he felt sick with himself.

 

That night, he listened to Lorai and Tam up on the loft. They were both moaning, giggling, whispering words of affection and encouragement to one another. Kael ached, empty and cold and alone, on the floor.

 

He wondered if it really felt good for them, if they were really feeling what they pretended to feel. The last few times with Marett, he had learned to act. It made Marett happy, and it made him kinder. It had even made him try to make Kael feel good, too. And he had. It was something about the angle, or something about the surrender, that had finally made it feel, at least physically, okay.

 

Maybe Kael had been wrong. Maybe that was what love was. Sacrifice. It was what he'd been meant for, after all. Learning to love Is and give his life to him. Marett was his teacher, he would have shown him how. Maybe Kael had been childish. Maybe he had been too picky. 

 

One person had loved him, taken care of him, defended him. Taught him to read, though he was so stupid. Maybe if he'd given Marett time, he would have taught Kael to love him back, in the same way Marett loved him. Maybe if Solfru had never attacked, they could have been happy, in the end.

 

The voice in his ear was not welcome, but it pulled him out of his dizzying thought spirals.

 

_Marett did not love you_ , Is said so coldly.  _He loved Laela. Or what he thought she was._

 

_So?!_ Kael snapped back, though it hurt to fully let that idea sink in. Kael had never been a person on his own to Marett. He'd always been compared to, and judged to fall short of, Laela.

 

_So, if another had been chosen as the prince or princess, he would have sought them out, instead._

 

Kael felt sick.  _So I'm that useless._

 

_That is not what I said. But to him, yes._

 

 _I miss him_ , Kael sobbed. _I want to go home._ _I'm sorry._

 

_Why would you crave the love of someone who thinks of you as useless? Who does not love you?_

 

"Because I don't have anyone else," Kael whispered.

 

_That's a lie,_ Is whispered back.

 

Upstairs, Lorai and Tam snored peacefully together, not needing him at all.

 

 

 


	13. These And More Than These

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Joseph Fink - These and More Than These](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdzSQIejRQM)
> 
>  
> 
> This chapter is pretty long, oops. There's a lot of exposition here too.

"I'm sorry," Kael said, while staring stubbornly at Calem's brown leather shoes. He was slowly pushing himself back and forth on the swing, his bare toes pressed against the hardened soil beneath him. The weather was warm during the days now, and shoes were barely necessary. "I was trying to hurt you, saying those things. I could tell it made you uncomfortable."

 

Calem had his arms crossed over his chest. The children were at Jorel's and Lisie's home, studying. That was Kael's next stop, after Calem. After only a few days of promising himself he'd never go back, that no one needed or wanted him, his mind itched too much to stay cooped up in the shack. He wanted to continue his lessons, and he wanted Calem to not hate him. The blacksmith cleared his throat and shifted, dragging Kael's mind back to the present. Kael heard the rustle of clothing, more than he saw the motion.

 

"Why were ye tryin' to hurt me?" Calem asked. He didn't sound angry, like Kael had expected him to. The endless patience made him dig his fingers harder into the rope holding the swing up.

 

Kael shrugged stiffly. "It made me feel better. Like... like I was stronger than you."

 

Calem sighed. "Does hurtin' people make ye stronger than others? Does it make ye better?"

 

Kael glanced up. It was hard to read Calem's face. His eyes looked as sad as always. It made Kael feel nauseous. He looked down again and shook his head.

 

"I forgive ye. And I don't want ye to feel bad about it. But I want ye to be careful, Kael." Calem placed a heavy, warm hand on Kael's right shoulder. Kael looked up again at the silent urging. Calem continued, making steady eyecontact. "It's temptin' to hurt others to stop yer own hurt. But it doesn't work that way. Ye get stuck."

 

Kael's eye watered. He rubbed at his left eye, itching under the eyepatch. It was green like budding leaves, with delicate embroidery around the edge. One of his new ones, with the slipknots in the back so he could tighten it himself. "I'm already stuck."

 

Calem sighed again. "I can't help much with that. It doesn't happen overnight. After a while, ye just... realize ye like livin' in the now more than ye fear the past."

 

Kael laughed, but it felt more like a sob. "That's the problem. I don't fear it. I miss it."

 

Calem raised an eyebrow. "Ye miss bein' hurt?"

 

Kael shook his head. "Everything else. My routines. My room. My greenhouse. My books. My bed. My Marett. Not the one he turned into. Mine. And I... I think that..." He was choking up, trying to turn it into words. What he'd barely dared think, for fear that Ryca would be disappointed. But Ryca had abandoned him here, and Calem was trying to help him.

 

"Ye wanna go inside?" Calem asked, glancing at the building. Offering privacy, and maybe more sweetbreads. Kael shook his head. Rocking back and forth on the swing was comforting, and the open field and the ocean beyond that made him feel less confined.

 

"If Marett... If he'd just given me some time... I think I could have learned to love him back, the way he wanted me. If he hadn't been so rough." Kael picked at the rope of the swing, tearing at the fibers. Pinching it hard between his thumb and forefinger, so Calem wouldn't look at him strange for pinching his own flesh instead.

 

Calem was quiet for a while, digesting his words. "And ye think ye'd be happy like that."

 

Kael shrugged. "I'd get used to it." Winter children weren't meant for happiness. But he would have been wanted. Needed. Loved. He would have been told what to do, and when. "I wouldn't have to worry."

 

"Worry about what?" Calem had crouched down now, in front of Kael. Calem seemed so small like that, tilting his head up at him. Like a bird. A fat, bearded bird. The idea almost made Kael smile.

 

"Everything," Kael sighed. "Life. The future. Who I'm supposed to be. If anyone loves me."

 

"Oh, child," Calem chuckled. "Child, everyone worries about that. That's what life is. Worryin'. Questionin'. Tryin' to be just a little happier, just a little more comfortable. Tryin' to make others a little happier."

 

"I don't want to be alone," Kael said. He felt light, but not in the floaty way, when he disappeared from his body and lost control of what he did or said. He felt light like he did when his hair had been cut, like when his chains had fallen off, like when Ryca pressed a blade to his temple and let the blood out.

 

"So don't be," Calem smiled at him. "Ye have Lorai and Tam. Ye have a whole village who's curious about ye. Plenty people who need help, or company, or someone to listen to 'em talk. Taniel talks about ye all the time, as does Sunny, far as I know. Ye can pick and choose if ye wanna be around people, or if ye wanna enjoy some peace and quiet."

 

Kael grasped at his neck, rubbing at the smooth, healed skin. Calem shook his head.

 

"Any chains ye got now are all yer own. Ye gotta take 'em off yerself. Over and over again, ye gotta take 'em off."

 

Kael was quiet for a moment. He wondered what it was that Calem had been through, and how much or how little he really understood how Kael felt. In the end, he supposed it didn't matter much. What happened happened, and it changed either of them in their own ways.

 

"Thank you," Kael said finally. Getting to his feet. Wiping rope fibers off of his hand by rubbing it on his skirt. "If there's anything I can do..."

 

"Stop by now and then. I'm sure Taniel wants to see ye. He thinks yer some sort of hero. He said Sunny said ye lost yer arm fightin' some monster." Calem chuckled.

 

Kael smiled. "Sunny said that?"

 

"Yeah. She's a clever kid. She's right, isn't she?"

 

Kael nodded. "Sort of. A mob of people. The Council starved them, and they attacked the Spires. Lorai must have told you. I got between the Prince and a sledgehammer."

 

Calem shook his head. "Lorai doesn't speak much about it. But that sure sounds heroic. Savin' yer prince like that."

 

"I failed," Kael weighed from foot to foot. Eager to leave now. "I didn't save him."

 

"Ye tried, though. A single child against a mob of people? Yer awfully brave. So don't let some measly memories defeat ye now."

 

For a moment, Kael wasn't looking at Calem. For a moment, he saw Taniel. A chubby, shy child hugging him, and telling him to 'feel better soon'. Like it was that simple. Like he had no doubt Kael couldn't defeat whatever evil he was fighting.

 

"Thank you," Kael said, and wrapped his arm as far around Calem's waist as he could. The large man was warm and firm, not as soft as Lorai, not as unyielding and suffocating as Marett.

 

Calem hesitated for a moment before returning the embrace with a sigh, both of his strong arms resting delicately around him. Kael stayed still for a moment, resting against him, listening to his heartbeat. Calem's heart beat slow and steady, and his breathing remained calm. It soothed Kael as well, feeling no tension in the other.

 

Calem held Kael only until Kael began to pull away, and he was instantly released. There was no demand for more than Kael was ready to give up.

 

"I'm going to see Jorel now," Kael said. He had felt exhausted when he arrived to Calem's house, but now he felt energized. "I need to apologize to him too. I hope he'll still teach me to write."

 

"I'm sure he will," Calem said with a wave.

 

Kael waved back and turned, walking down to the dirt path back toward the village. As he came closer to Jorel's house, he heard barking. Steady, insistent, and angry. He recognized the voice as Ros.

 

He hurried his steps until he was running, his empty sleeve flying out behind him and his left arm swinging back and forth at his side. The right side of his stomach cramped and ached, and his lungs burned.

 

Ros was snarling and barking outside the house, and when Kael saw what she was barking at, he felt like his heart would stop entirely. There were two Queensguards, without their gold helmets but wearing the emblem on their chest pieces. Neither of them was Aderia. One was as dark as she, but without the bright puff of hair, or indeed any hair at all. The other was a little lighter, a woman with dark hair tied up in a bun. Beyond that, Kael couldn't see what they looked like. Seeing that much even while squinting, he was still too close.

 

Kael fumbled, trying to find a hood to pull up, to hide his face. It was too late.

 

"You! Come here," the woman barked.

 

Kael considered running, but he was already tired, his side ached, he could barely breathe, and the sun was looking out from between the clouds making him feel dizzy and sore already. He did not want to die, and that was a startling realization. He bowed his head and approached, knowing in that moment that everything was ruined. Prince Kael was supposed to be dead, was supposed to be a statue in Exile.

 

_I can take care of them,_ Is offered. 

 

_Wait,_ Kael pleaded.

 

"We're looking for the Traitor Queen," the female told him when he got closer, grabbing hold of Kael's chin and tipping his head up to force eyecontact. Ros' barking grew louder and more frantic, as she danced around them, making the man grip his sword.

 

Kael's eye couldn't focus on her face. He saw only a brown blur, punctuated by bright green eyes. 

 

"No queens here," he breathed. "Only fishermen and farmers."

 

The man whispered something Kael couldn't hear to the woman, and she grunted, letting Kael go and stepping aside. 

 

"And Ishemish princes," she growled.

 

"There are no princes in Ishem," Kael answered. "The last one died."

 

"Really now," the man said, stepping in front of Kael. "Because I seem to remember changing his chamber pot a few times, and you look an awful lot like him."

 

"Thank you," Kael smiled. "I will take that as a compliment."

 

"Insolent...!" The man raised a steel-gloved hand, ready to land a blow.

 

_Do it_ , Kael thought.  _Hit me, you coward._

 

He saw a blur of red, and heard a snarl and a yelp. When he blinked to clear his vision, he saw Ros had latched herself to the man's wrist, hanging from his arm as he yelled and flailed. Finally she let go, dropping to the ground and placing herself between Kael and the two Queensguard.

 

The woman drew her sword, then gasped in pain. All across the steel, Kael saw frost crystals forming, like on the windows of his greenhouse in winter. They crisscrossed up the blade, turning it blue. When the frost reached her glove, white ice crystals formed over the hilt and her leather glove, freezing it in place. She staggered back, waving her arm dangerously to try and free her hand. The blade hit the ground and shattered, and only then did the ice melt. She tugged her glove off quickly and tucked her swordhand into her armpit to warm it, but not before Kael could see blackened fingertips.

 

_I told you to wait,_ Kael chided.

 

Behind them, the door to the house finally opened, and Jorel's head peaked around it. He pushed the door open, calling back to Sunny and Taniel to stay inside. He rolled his chair out and down the wooden ramp, joining Kael on the dirt road. Ros growled and sat down next to him. Jorel reached over and scratched her behind the ear.

 

"Good girl," Jorel mumbled, before turning to the two guards, who now looked equal parts angry and equal parts scared. The female guard, with her frostbitten hand grasped in her armpit, seemed taken back. She cleared her throat.

 

"We could imprison you all if we suspect anyone of hiding the Traitor Queen."

 

"No one's hiding anyone. You may search our village if you'd like. You will find twelve women, eight men, and ten children under fifteen years of age. None of us have royal blood. Of course, when people learn that you have harassed a peaceful village of children and cripples, I would not be surprised if they were unhappy with you." Jorel spoke so calmly. Kael gripped the backrest of his chair, his knuckles whitening.

 

The man whispered something about _Sandpoint_ to the woman. Jorel sat up straighter in his chair. The two guards nodded at one another.

 

"Well," the woman sniffed at last. "If anyone sees the Queenmurderer, send a bird to Brightcastle at once. The Council will want to know."

 

_Council?_ Is growled in Kael's head.

 

Kael went cold all over. He and Jorel and Ros watched the guards turn and leave, heading south along the main trail along the coastline toward Sun City. They vanished from Kael's vision, and a while later, Jorel turned away too with a heavy sigh.

 

"The Council?" Kael squeaked.

 

"Let's go inside," Jorel said. Kael let go of his chair, and Jorel rolled ahead into the building. Ros let out a bark and ran off towards home.

 

In the kitchen, Sunny and Taniel sat quiet. A woman with Sunny's curly blonde hair was holding the children and weeping silently. She looked like Aderia, if Aderia had been tall and lanky. 

 

"Lisie," Jorel sighed. "They're gone. They came from Sun City, not Sandpoint."

 

The woman nodded and wiped her tears, giving both children a firm hug before standing up. She straightened out her gown. It was made from heavy linen, and had soil and grass stains on the skirt. She had dirt on her hands, too, under her nails and in the little lines on her palms. She held her hand out. Kael shook it. "I'm Lisie," she said with a tearstained voice.

 

"Kael," he replied numbly. "Thank you. For the box, and the eyepatches."

 

She smiled. "Thank you for chasing off those soldiers."

 

Kael blushed and looked down. "I didn't. It was..." He hesitated. It had been Is, but he could hardly say as much, could he?

 

"It doesn't matter," Jorel said. "They're gone now. They're not coming for you, Lisie."

 

Sunny ran up to Lisie and hugged her hard. Taniel, shy and slow, followed after, and only hugged himself. "Kael made them not take you away, mama!" Sunny exclaimed.

 

"Why would they come for you?" Kael asked. His heart swelled a little. Perhaps he had hurt someone, but if that saved Sunny's mother and Jorel's wife, no, if that kept this one person safe, even if he did not know them... that was worth it.

 

Lisie kissed the top of Sunny's head before looking up at Kael. "After the last war, I was captured and taken to the prison in Sandpoint. It was hellish. In Ishem, there was never such dry heat. We were treated like... lower than dogs. We were starved and beaten and," she glanced down at Sunny for a moment, before continuing. "And worse. But with the first riots, years ago, I got out and I ran, and I fled here."

 

"That was seven years ago," Jorel smiled. His eyes looked pained.

 

Kael looked at Sunny again. She didn't have much of Jorel in her at all. She had so cheerfully told Kael she was six and a half. He met Lisie's gaze. He could see it in her eyes, too. He gave her a faint smile. 

 

"If you need any help on the farm, I'd be happy to. I don't know how much use I can be, and I don't tolerate sunshine very well, but..."

 

Before Kael could finish his sentence, she hugged him tightly. "Oh, thank you! How much pay do you need? We don't have much, but-"

 

"I'd be happy if you'd let me continue my lessons," Kael answered. 

 

Sunny cheered and began clapping.

 

"Of course," Jorel said. "Whenever you want."

 

Kael nodded gratefully. "Okay. Start telling me what's happening in Sun City... and about Sandpoint."

 

Lisie gathered the children and ushered them outside, to their disappointed whining and pleading, but quickly hushed them with promises of dinner at Calem's house. Kael settled down at the table, and Jorel joined him there.

 

"I've only heard a little from the traveling merchants we buy seed from, and Lisie hears things from the other farmers, who still have family and friends in Sun City," Jorel began. "But when Queen Melara – you know of her, yes?"

 

Kael nodded. He knew of her. He knew she was cruel, and a bully, and that she snored when she slept, and that she stole all the blankets.

 

"When Queen Melara died in Ishem, her daughter was crowned the new Queen."

 

"Midsommar," Kael whispered. He remembered how pretty she was, and how her eyes were like gold and her smile made his face turn pink. She'd looked just like her brother, but not had an ounce of mercy or sympathy in her.

 

"Yes. Queen Midsommar. She ordered an attack on Ishem then and there."

 

Kael nodded. He remembered the morning after his wedding night. He remembered aching all over, and the taste of blood in his mouth. He remembered Iona running into the throne room, not knowing or not caring what had happened just moments before. He remembered staring not at her blurry face in the distance, but at the angry red bitemarks he had left on Marett's neck. Her words, shrill, had only sunk into his screaming mind as an afterthought. _The Queen is dead._

 

"Melara was ill," Kael recalled. "She got sick and died."

 

Jorel shook his head. "After the Queen's body was returned to Sun City, the Priesthood investigated it. They found out she'd been poisoned. After questioning, they learned who killed her."

 

Kael turned pale. He thought of Ryca, of course. And she had gone back to Dim. What if she was caught? What if she'd been taken to prison, or killed? What if... but no. If she was the one, and she'd already been caught, the Queensguard wouldn't come out here to look for her. And Ryca was no Queen...

 

"Midsommar?" Kael gasped.

 

Jorel nodded grimly. "Murdered her own mother for power. The brother too, rumour says."

 

Kael shook his head. "Medin escaped Sun City. He came to Exile, trying... trying to save me, I think."

 

"Oh, I know that. He came here. Tam fished him out of the ocean." Jorel laughed.

 

"I don't think she would," Kael said. Jorel gave him a confused look, so he clarified. "I don't think Midsommar would kill her brother. Medin was nice, and he wasn't a threat to her. Melara was..." He hesitated. He didn't want to speak ill of the dead, but he'd been chained to a throne for days, listening to the dead speak ill of him. Hallucination or not, it was only fair. "Melara was cruel, and she pitted her children against each other."

 

"Whatever the truth, the Queen ran away. She escaped Brightcastle and she's not been seen since. That same night, a ship was stolen from Queensport. The last of the royal fleet... leaving Solfru shipless, and leaving no one able to follow it by sea." Jorel's face twitched into something like an amused smile.

 

Kael laughed. No matter how he tried, he could not imagine the doll-like princess in her stiff dresses, commandeering a ship. He tried to imagine himself, after Faiet was murdered, stowing away on some merchant ship. "That's amazing."

 

Jorel sighed. "I wish her well. After her disappearance, however, there is no one left of the royal lineage. Some noble houses squabble for the throne, of course. The Priesthood appointed a Council, each member picked from a different area of Solfru, to represent the people until things calm and a successor can be chosen. It was that, or war within the country itself."

 

Kael nodded seriously. He remembered some things he had learned, things he'd been taught (usually in a sneering voice and a mocking expression) about Solfru, and its history of quashing Ishem and oppressing its people. "But without a fleet, how are they keeping the colonies?"

 

Jorel smiled. "They're not. They can't. Ishem is free, not like anyone can get in there now anyway except through the Door, and you can't march an army through there. The Tuéshi have broken free, as have the Frejans. The Armasi are joining with Karus, to free themselves from the Solfruan territories abroad. And Sandpoint... last I heard, the prison is no more. Perhaps Brightcastle will empty its dungeons, too. But don't tell Sunny or Taniel, okay?"

 

Kael nodded. He remembered Lorai telling him that Vesti, Calem's husband and Taniel's father, had been captured and likely imprisoned. If he was dead, or if he was simply not coming back, he didn't want to give the children any false hope.

 

"I should go," Kael said after a brief, ponderous silence. Tam would be home soon, and he wanted to see her. He realized he wanted to see them both, after all that had happened that day. He wanted them to know he was okay.

 

 


	14. All Was Well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRC49qUCp9Y)

Tam had woken Kael up early. They dressed and broke their fast on tea and oatmeal. Tam wrapped one of her spare coats around Kael, gave him a scarf, glove, boots and a wide brimmed hat. Lorai was still snoring upstairs, and they stepped gently over the pile of dogs likewise snoring in the doorway.

 

It was still dark outside, but there was the barest hint of light at the horizon, beyond the black sea. It wasn't too cold outside, but the grass was wet with dew that glittered like frost under the faint starlight. Tam held up their lantern. They walked alongside one another toward the base of Skymningsberg.

 

"Lisie will be very grateful for whatever help you can offer," Tam said in almost a whisper, as if not wanting to wake the villagers still resting in their homes. Though they were not the only ones awake. Other fishers and farmers were waking, some already leaving down the hill toward the ocean, going past Tam and Kael. "But don't overdo it."

 

Kael hadn't been so bundled up since fleeing Exile. The coat and scarf smelled vaguely of Tam, of the ocean, and some old, spilled tea. He cradled it to his face. "I won't."

 

"I asked her to send you off once the sun rises. No later than midday."

 

"I can take care of myself," Kael complained. Though Tam had had to lace up his boots.

 

"I know that." Tam's response was simple and matter-of-factly. "But if you have to leave earlier-"

 

"I won't." Kael snapped. He felt bad right after, lowering his head. But in the light of the lantern, he could see Tam's smile.

 

"Okay. I'll see you home, when you're done."

 

"Take care," Kael offered, an attempt at an apology without using so many words.

 

"You too," Tam grinned, and patted him on the shoulder. She was infuriatingly tall, right then. Kael blushed and turned his back on her, walking the last few steps up to Jorel and Lisie's house.

 

He barely raised his hand to knock when the door opened and Lisie poked her head out with a smile. She was wrapped up much like Kael, expecting cold weather. Kael stepped aside and she walked out, wearing pants and a heavy coat. She was carrying a backpack of sackcloth, and carrying a lantern herself. She carefully closed the door behind her. "Shall we?"

 

Kael nodded, and she lead the way toward the mountain. They walked at a leisurely pace in comfortable silence.

 

It wasn't a long hike. They rounded a sparse copse of pines behind the first few pastures, and there the dirt road grew bumpy. They started walking up hill for a little, until they got to a trail that seemed mostly flat. On their right, there was a steep, rocky drop into bushy forest. Kael saw only blurred darkness.

 

"The village is down there," Lisie whispered.

 

They were steadily turning very slightly left. The air was a little thinner here, and then the trail turned down once more. Kael was trying to keep a mental map. He heard and smelled the ocean, and the sky was lightening as the sun rose. He pulled his hat down to shield his eyes. Behind Skymningsberg, wedged between the north of the Belt and a sheer drop into the ocean, irrigated by melted snow and rainfall running down the mountainside, was a flat expanse of farms. The area was larger than the sprawl of the village. Right where the slope began anew up the mountain, Kael could see countless saplings and young fruit trees, some with finely woven nets covering their branches to keep the birds out. The webbing glistened with dew and the rising sun turned the fresh green leaves to gold.

 

The stream of meltwater, bridged over with planks, separated the orchard from the fresh tilled soil. Ditches had been dug off the stream to pull water into the fields. The soil smelled dark and rich. Marett had imported soil from Eld for Kael's greenhouse, letting him grow rare flowers and fruits with ease. This soil smelled a little different, but he recognized it still as fertile and healthy.

 

Lisie shrugged off her backpack and sat it down on a bench by a table and stone circle. This was likely where the farmers had their meals, while working the earth. Kael sidled up to her with excitement. Lisie's nose wrinkled when she smiled, and her eyes sparkled as she pulled out a smaller pouch from her bag. She shook it, and the insides rattled against each other. "Seeds."

 

Kael took his glove off with his teeth and cupped his hand, holding it out palm up. Lisie opened the pouch and shook some of the contents into his hand. Kael brought the seeds closer to his face and peered at them, the rising sun barely providing enough light. He squinted.

 

"Spinach seeds?" He guessed.

 

"Kale," Lisie said.

 

"Yes?"

 

Lisie giggled. "No, they're kale seeds."

 

"Oh," Kael blushed. He dropped the loose seeds back into the pouch. Lisie reached around him and tied it around his neck, the string long enough that it hung easily at chest level.

 

"You wanna bury them no deeper than your fingertips. One or two seeds in each pocket, then cover. Once they start sprouting, we'll move them apart, so for now you can put them pretty close to each other. I'll be planting potatoes in the next field over."

 

Kael felt both sides of his face twitch into a smile. "How fast to they grow?"

 

"Pretty slow. They do best in a bit of frost, but once it warms up, they'll shoot up real tall with bright yellow flowers. But it's the leaves you eat. Cook 'em in stews, make a soup..."

 

Kael knelt onto the moist soil, sinking his index finger into the ground. Just the tip of it, as he'd been told. He reached into the pouch hanging from his neck, picked out a couple of seeds, and dropped it into the hole he'd made. He gently patted it over, then made a second hole.

 

It wasn't hard work, and while repetitive, there was something very soothing about it. The sun rose over them, and Kael adjusted his hat and scarf to keep his skin out of the sun, while turning his back on the ocean to shield his hand as well. He planted as far as he could reach, then scooted over. Mud was seeping into the knees of Tam's pants, and he smelled nothing but soil and the breeze of the ocean.

 

Kael forgot all about time and space, until his stomach growled, announcing his hunger. Lisie, who had shed her coat as the sun warmed them, yawned and stretched. Her back creaked and cracked and she rolled her shoulders. Her field was half sown, and yet she still had a sack of cut potatoes left to bury. She left the sack where it was and walked over to the stream, rinsing her hands.

 

"It's lunch time. Take a break," she called over. She sat down at the bench and opened up her backpack, pulling out two fist-sized parcels wrapped in cloth. She made a fire, gathered more water from the stream, and started boiling it in a copper pot over the fire. She dropped the contents of her parcels into the water.

 

Kael wouldn't have minded continuing. His body ached and his mind felt blissfully empty, but it was the pain and weariness that came not from violence or sickness, but from hard yet enjoyable work. When he climbed to his feet his head spun, though, and he had to take a few moments before he could move, as to not fall face first into the fertile soil.

 

He moved carefully to the stream and rinsed his hands. The water was cold, and he glanced up the mountain to see where it originated from.

 

_If there was no snow, this water would not be here,_ Is said in his head.

 

_I used to have a dream I turned into snow,_ Kael responded.  _That I snowed down over Ishem, melted, watered the land. I became so many flowers. I watered so many trees._

 

_In order for spring to come, there needs to be winter first_ , Is said.

 

Kael took a seat by Lisie and listened to the birds squabble as they tried to get into the orchard. Chirping and flying around for a place to land. Two red-breasted sparrows landed on the ground near Kael. He tossed them some seeds. He still had so many in his pouch.

 

Lisie looked at him, but didn't yell at him for wasting seed. She returned to stirring the soup. Kael felt warm in his layers of clothing, and opened his coat, but left it on to shield himself from the sun.

 

Only then did Kael realize how quiet it was. How still. He only heard the ocean below them, the wind in the trees, the birds, the crackling of the fire. He looked around at the large expanse of isolated farmland, at the orchard he'd been told was cared for by a family from Sun City.

 

"Why is no one else here?" he asked.

 

"It's just you and me today," Lisie said. "I thought that might be safer. Besides, some days there are other things to do than tend the farm. So long as someone is here every day to make sure everything is okay."

 

Kael wanted to ask more questions, about who came here, and how often, and what else they may be doing, when she pulled two large wooden cups with handles from her backpack, took the pot from the stove, and poured steaming, chunky soup into each cup.

 

Kael blew on his soup before drinking it, and soon he'd forgotten what they had been talking about before. After lunch they returned to planting for another while, until Lisie's sack of potatoes was empty, and Kael's kale field was full. They both stretched and groaned, washed their hands and faces in the stream and headed back for the village.

 

"Thank you for today," Lisie said, pulling Kael closer to put her arm around his shoulders. She, like Tam, was rudely tall. "You were a lot of help. If I had to plant both fields myself, it would have taken twice as long, and I might have missed the last frost."

 

Kael's shoulders, back and knees ached. He smelled like earth. He was grinning. "Thank you for the soup."

 

"Next time I'll bring cookies," Lisie promised. "And maybe some cider, for when we're done? I still have some from last year."

 

"I'd like that." Kael wanted to cry. She wanted him back. She wanted him to help her again. He couldn't wait to see how his plants would grow, if they would thrive. He couldn't wait to see their flowers, and taste them, once they were ready.

 

The sun was high above them and Kael's skin was beginning to itch. He was sweating heavily under Tam's heavy coat, and his head was pounding. The village was empty as they walked through it. Kael's heart began to pound at the same pace as his head, and he gripped Lisie's arm when they neared her and Jorel's home.

 

"I'll walk you back," Lisie said, as if sensing his discomfort.

 

Something was wrong, Kael was sure of it.

 

"Where is everyone?" Kael's voice broke.

 

"Don't worry." Lisie was smiling. Kael wanted to trust her.

 

Ros, Lass and Dis came running when Lisie and Kael were rounding the last hill before Lorai and Tam's shack. They were wagging their tails. Kael relaxed. "Hi girls." 

 

He let go of Lisie's arm, petting each of the hounds in turn. Lisie smiled. "Told you not to worry."

 

With the three dogs running ahead, they came down the hill, and Kael saw where everyone had been all day. The entire village was there, all twenty eight souls. Sunny was chasing Taniel around, shrieking and laughing. Two other children, dressed in colorful headscarves, were running around with them. Jorel was there in his chair, conversing with the smallest, oldest woman Kael had ever seen. Tam and Lorai were guiding the adults as they nailed down planks of driftwood, and moved things back and forth across the grass. A group of older women were gossiping in the sun, their dresses pulled down and tied around their waist as they bathed their backs and chests in the warm spring sun. They were weaving a mattress from reeds, their hands quick and precise.

 

What had once been Lorai's studio was far larger now. Kael approached slowly with Lisie, nervous at the presence of so many strangers. But he knew their names, he knew their faces. And though everyone looked up when he approached, most only gave him a nod and a smile, or a brief greeting.

 

Calem grunted and Lorai and Tam rushed to help before he toppled the mattress over. The three carried it into what once had been Lorai's shack. Kael glanced past them to see the paintings gone. The small single room had become two large rooms, separated by a door between them, and with two entrances. The extension joined the shack together with the kitchen. 

 

Lorai and Tam grinned at him when they followed Calem out. They were dripping with sweat. Both hugged him tight.

 

"Ew, you're sweaty," he laughed.

 

"And you're muddy," Lorai retorted.

 

"What are you doing?" Kael asked. "Why is everyone here?"

 

"Well," Tam smiled. "If you're staying a while, it doesn't seem fair to make you sleep in the closet."

 

"It'd be nice to have yer own room and bed again, yeah?" Calem smiled sheepishly, scratching his beard.

 

Kael felt his face turn red. Had Calem told Lorai and Tam what Kael told him? He looked up at the blacksmith, but Calem shook his head lightly at him, as if he knew why Kael was so startled.

 

"Come on," Lorai said, taking Kael's hand and guiding him into the slightly smaller bedroom. It had a raised mattress, larger than his old bed at the Spires, and a bar along the wall where he could hang his clothing. He had a small desk, and a window overlooking the ocean. There was a second door across from the main one, and Lorai pushed it open.

 

It lead out into a small plot of grass, about the size of the room behind them, fenced in with branches and rope. Above, a sailcloth was hung overhead, to shield from the sun. 

 

"A garden," Kael breathed.

 

"If that's what you want to use it for," Lorai smiled.

 

The room next to his was Lorai and Tam's bedroom, moved down from the loft above the kitchen. It had a large bed and a heavy chest in the corner, and their clothes hung up neatly from the ceiling. A door opened up into the kitchen, which looked the same as it had. The big difference was behind the beaded curtain, where once there'd been a ladder leading up to the loft. Kael had slept on the floor or in the corner for weeks, wherever he felt more at ease that night.

 

Now, there was no room to sleep here. The ladder had been replaced with a spiral staircase of planks set into the wall, with a sturdy railing on each side. Kael climbed it on his hand and feet, getting dirt on the fresh wood. 

 

The loft was more spacious than he had imagined, and far brighter. The walls up here had gaps in them, covered up with sail cloth. Lorai climbed up after Kael and tied the cloths up, to let the light in. There was her easel, her canvases, her chests and shelves of paints and minerals. 

 

"Now you'll have to let me paint you some day," Lorai said firmly.

 

"As long as you don't paint me naked," Kael smiled. Posing for a portrait was the least he could do to repay Lorai for giving him a bedroom, a bed... a home.

 

"I won't make any promises." Lorai stuck her tongue out.

 

"Are you being a pervert up there, dear?" Tam shouted from the kitchen below.

 

"Always," Lorai shouted back. 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the Kael - kale thing. That doesn't even make sense, they're not speaking English.


	15. Primavera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Ludovico Einaudi - Primavera](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmxFAT581T4)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> \-----
> 
> This chapter contains pretty detailed (consensual but awkward) sexual content and mentions of past sexual abuse and genital mutilation (okay only the first thing is new i guess so whatever).

Kael made some vague attempts at socializing, but the more time he spent in Skymning, the more he realized it was a village of people who valued privacy and solitude as much as he did, yet at the same time didn't hesitate to help out if others needed help. So when he withdrew with Ros, Lass and Dis to the stream to wash off after his morning at the farm, no one questioned it or demanded to accompany him.

 

It was far enough into the afternoon that the sun was hidden behind the Belt, and Kael sat in its shade, enjoying the comfortable temperature and the lack of sunshine as he bathed. He rested in the cool stream, long since done rinsing his hands and face. His clothes rested on a rock by the water, and he leaned back, looking up at the sky above. It was darkening, and the clouds dancing across it were taking on a purple hue. He hoped if it rained, it would be a gentle one, and not wash away the seedling on the mountain side.

 

The dogs were lounging around the meadow, lazily dazing after a long day of bustling activity as the entire village rebuilt their home. Kael heard one of them whine and sat up fast enough to make his vision darken and his head spin for a moment. All three dogs had perked up, their ears raised and their tails wagging. He could see the blurry motion, and heard the steady patting of their tails against the ground.

 

Kael relaxed, and squinted in the direction they were turned. The brightly glowing figure of Lorai appeared over the hill and steered right toward him. Kael closed his legs and sat up taller. He'd been naked around her before, as she had around him, but only in the dark of the shack, rummaging for clothes in the morning.

 

"I'm so sweaty," Lorai sighed. "Can I join you?" She patted each of the dogs in turn, and the hounds settled back down for their nap in the shade.

 

"It's nice and cool," Kael said, not rejecting her.

 

Lorai pulled her simple linen gown, stained with paint and sweat, over her head and dropped it next to Kael's pile of clothes. She wore nothing underneath, and Kael was trying hard not to stare. She was all soft folds and freckled flesh where he was all angles and bones. She had been chubby in the Spires too, so it was more a birth trait than wealth and indulgence that gave her such a comforting form. She didn't have large breasts, but they were there, as filled out at the rest of her body. Her nipples were as dark pink as her lips. The dark freckles littering her skin continued all over, as stars might have looked if they were points of darkness rather than light, and the sky was as pink as the clematis flowers he had grown in his orangery in the Spires.

 

And then, there was her scar. It began a few finger widths below her belly button, and ran horizontally across her lower abdomen. Below the long scar, the seemed intact, from what Kael knew about women's bodies. She was hairless as he was, of course.

 

She stretched, not noticing or not minding Kael's gaze. She stepped into the stream carefully, dipping her toes at first before sinking in with a shudder. "It's cold."

 

Slowly, Lorai lowered herself down next to Kael. She leaned back against the slope with a sigh. "It feels good, though. I'm all sore from carrying planks."

 

Kael remained seated, still staring at her. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing steadily, letting the water wash over her.

 

After a moment, one of her eyes opened a sliver. She glanced over at him. Kael felt his face burning.

 

"You can touch if you'd like." She asked with a somewhat smug smile.

 

Kael started stammering, scooting away a little further. "Ah, ah, no, I was just..."

 

"Curious." Lorai finished his sentence for him. Kael nodded.

 

"I was just wondering..." He was fidgeting, drawing his fingertips over the bruised spot on his left thigh. He pressed his thumb into it, and it ached, but he didn't need to pinch himself to calm down.

 

"You're free to wonder all you'd like," Lorai smiled and sat up. Her wet hair fell straight, covering her face. She slicked it back and blinked over at him.

 

"How does it work?" He gestured vaguely to her stomach, to her scar.

 

Lorai tilted her head at him. "How does what work?"

 

"Your... when you were cut. When you're with Tam. I thought... you wouldn't be able to," Kael stammered. His face was red, all but admitting that he'd been listening in on them.

 

"Oh," Lorai smiled wider. "I just can't have children. I won't develop breasts, or get wide hips, and I don't have my moonblood like Tam does. Everything else works just fine. Everything that matters, anyway."

 

Kael pinched himself hard. "And what... what _matters_?"

 

"For me or for you?" Lorai asked.

 

Kael looked away and shrugged. He didn't know how to answer that.

 

"Well," Lorai started, drawing his attention back to her. "I don't really like anything inside of me, for one."

 

"What else is there?" Kael asked, equal parts terrified and fascinated. It wasn't like he'd been told any of this in the Spires. "I mean, you're a girl."

 

Lorai laughed, and he shrank back, even if he knew she wasn't laughing at him. "I am. But girls and boys aren't that different, really. Ah... maybe it would be easier to just show you. If that's okay?"

 

Kael wasn't sure what he was agreeing to, but his body felt hot and itchy, even in the cool water. He nodded, though.

 

She hefted herself onto the bank of the stream and parted her legs. Kael looked away, even though he knew he was supposed to look this time. She waited patiently for him to drag his gaze back to her.

 

Lorai looked so soft there too, with folds of dark pink skin between freckled thighs. Kael pinched himself harder. He was nervous and it was getting hard to breathe, but he wasn't scared. Not like he had been before. His skin itched.

 

Confidently, Lorai parted her folds with two fingers and pointed with the forefinger on her other hand. "Some women look like this. This thing up here is my favorite," she grinned and pressed her fingertip against a small dark nub at the top of her folds. "That feels much better than having anything inside me."

 

Kael bit his lip. "So when you're with Tam, you're just pretending?" He had suspected as much. That it was all about sacrifice. Pretending to be happy, to keep other's happy. He curled up a little.

 

But Lorai laughed again. "No, not at all. Sometimes, I don't mind it. But Tam," she lowered her voice to a whisper, like she was telling a secret. "Tam loves things inside her. Here." She moved her finger lower and rubbed it over two smaller folds, revealing a dark hole. "Don't tell her I told you that, though."

 

Kael wouldn't. He didn't think he could ever talk about anything she was telling him. "But what about me?" he asked. "What... what am I supposed to like?"

 

Lorai shrugged. "I don't know. I've never been with you."

 

Kael looked around cautiously. He didn't see or hear anyone, and the dogs were resting peacefully, so no one was approaching. He pulled himself out of the stream and sat next to Lorai, opening his legs slowly. The bruise on his thigh was dark on nearly translucent white skin; a mixture of old, yellowing patches and fresh red and blue ones, but Lorai didn't mention it.

 

"Oh," Lorai sighed.

 

"I know it's bad," Kael choked out. His scar ran from just above the pubis bone and down to a few finger widths above his anus, a vertical pink line with white, puckered ridges around the edge where the stitches had been removed. He still remembered laying feverish in bed for days, too swollen to piss through the straw stuck through the wound. He shuddered.

 

"Can I?" Lorai asked, her soft fingers hovering over his flesh. He closed his eye and nodded, digging his fingers harder into his thigh.

 

"This doesn't seem fair," Lorai said. Her fingers were warm on his skin, tracing along the outside of the scar, where the skin was still soft and sensitive. He sucked his breath in sharply. "But you can feel this, right?"

 

Kael nodded. She moved her finger inward, touching the scar tissue now. It was numb, at first, and he felt only warmth and pressure.

 

"Tell me if you need me to stop," Lorai said firmly. "For whatever reason."

 

Kael nodded silently, his eye still screwed shut, but he could imagine her expression, stern but with her eyes glittering. He needed to know that he wasn't broken. He let her continue.

 

She persisted, running her finger up and down his scar in different ways and with different pressure. It was so different from touching himself, and just the act of it made him feel more sensitive. And then she found a spot that made his left leg kick, and his toes curl up.

 

Lorai giggled and brushed it again, and he grasped her arm tightly.

 

"Do you want me to stop?" She asked, lifting her finger. He opened his eye, and had to blink away tears before he could focus on her face. His heart was racing. It still wasn't fear. At least not the same kind of fear that had been pushing down on him for so long.

 

"You're married," Kael whispered.

 

"So are you," Lorai said.

 

 _I don't care_ , Is said.

 

"You love Tam," Kael whimpered, ignoring the voice in his head.

 

"M-hm," Lorai agreed, smiling.

 

"What if she finds out?"

 

"Well," Lorai sighed heavily. "She'll be awfully hurt I'm here with you without her. And she'd be embarrassed I told you about how much she loves it when I'm inside her."

 

"But..." Kael stammered.

 

"Do you want me to stop?" Lorai asked again.

 

Kael shook his head 'no'.

 

"Then I won't," Lorai said it like it was so simple. She brushed her finger against him again. His hips jumped, and his skin heated up.

 

"But... what... does that mean we're...?"

 

"We're friends," Lorai answered. "And I'm helping you. It's not fair to be left unable to make yourself feel good. It does, right?" She sounded concerned suddenly. "Feel good?"

 

Kael nodded. It did. He was tearing up, but it was more from relief than anything. He didn't realize he'd had a near constant headache until it began to ease up. "I couldn't... when I tried, it didn't..."

 

"Feel the same?" Lorai giggled and nuzzled against him. "You should try the thing Tam does with her tongue, now that's incredible."

 

It felt like the steady pressure in his head was moving to his stomach and between his legs. Kael let out a whine of frustration and leaned against Lorai, hiding his heated face in her chest. Lorai wrapped one arm around him, holding him against herself while he bucked and rocked his hips against her hand. She was rubbing his back.

 

He squirmed against her until his throat pressed against her shoulder. The pressure made it hard to breathe and while warm and soft rather than cold and hard, it reminded him of his collar, of the tithe throne. His heart was pounding and his body grew hotter. The soles of his feet burned and tickled and he dug his fingers hard into Lorai's wrist, keeping her hand where he needed it so badly. Stars danced under his eyelids, and then he went tense all over. He cramped a few times, his thighs tensing around Lorai's hand, and Kael was sure he made embarrassing sounds into Lorai's ear.

 

He slumped against her, panting for breath, and she pulled her hand away. He felt sore and warm, and she held him closer, wrapping both arms around his body. Kael squirmed and readjusted himself again so he was no longer strangling himself on the memory of chains, and nuzzled into her chest again.

 

"Are you okay?" Lorai asked softly.

 

Kael nodded. "Mhm."

 

"Look at me," Lorai pleaded.

 

Kael opened his eye and glanced up at her. His face felt hotter than his crotch, but he was smiling. The tension was gone, and though worries and fears began to creep back into his mind slowly, he felt lighter than fresh snow. The anxiety would come back on its own whether he rushed it or not.

 

"I liked that," Kael offered, to assure Lorai that he was truly okay.

 

Lorai grinned and giggled. "Good. You were so cute."

 

"Don't say that," Kael groaned in embarrassment. He didn't want to know what he looked like, or sounded like. "I didn't know what to do, I've never..."

 

Lorai frowned. "Never?"

 

Kael shook his head. "Never."

 

"Well, that's really unfair," she said, before muttering something under her breath.

 

"What was that?" Kael asked, worried his hearing was getting even worse.

 

"I said, he really wasn't all that clever, then. But all the better."

 

Kael didn't understand. He pushed away from her. "How is that better?"

 

"That makes that all yours," Lorai smiled. "All new."

 

She was right, of course. Lorai was right quite often. That was something Marett hadn't touched, something he hadn't ruined for him. And of course, Lorai had already known, and she had treated him all the same anyway. It was a relief, that he wouldn't have to tell her.

 

Kael shook his head to clear it. "I'd rather not think about it."

 

"Oh, me neither," Lorai agreed with a grin. She pressed a light kiss to his forehead. Kael giggled and swatted her away. And then he lowered his hand, his heart sinking again.

 

"Lorai..." he started, staring at the water of the stream.

 

"Yes, Kael?" She sank back into the water to wash off again.

 

"I know you're married to Tam, but... if she doesn't mind..."

 

"Yes!" Lorai said so swiftly it startled him. Kael blinked and joined her in the cool water again for a second rinse.

 

"Yes what?"

 

"Yes anything," Lorai giggled. "Kael, we're friends. I like you a lot. Tam likes you a lot, too. She's a little more shy, but she trusts you."

 

"Just... maybe, we could do that again, some time."

 

"Okay," she smiled.

 

"Okay," Kael whispered, feeling the smile tug at his lips. He wasn't broken, not completely at least. And Lorai liked him. Tam liked him. They knew about what had happened to him, and they still liked him.

 

Once they got out of the water the sky was dark and the moon was beginning to rise. They dressed together, gathered up the dogs, and headed back towards their home hand in hand.

 

"How did the farming go?" Lorai wondered.

 

Kael grinned. "It was so much fun. It's beautiful up there. Lisie let me plant seeds, and she said they'll grow very pretty flowers after the last frost."

 

"Here's to spring," Lorai said and kissed Kael's cheek again. He felt the warmth and pressure of her lips, but that side of his face was still a little numb. He didn't mind too much.

 

 

 


	16. Unsteady

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [X Ambassadors - Unsteady](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFjryf8zH_M&index=20&list=PL5ERIjGnzWbLg2P0JuGn9BRFtl7J3iesy)

_To Sister Ryca, of the Priesthood of <o>, on Dim._

 

_I am learning how to write. Tam's brother is giving me lessons._

 

_He said Midsommar killed the Queen. Did you already know that? Two Queensguards came here from Sun City and asked about her. They recognized me, but we scared them off._

 

_Everyone in the village is very nice. They helped Tam and Lorai build another room in their house, so I would have my own bedroom. I have a garden, too. I'm not sure what I want to grow there yet._

 

_I am also giving Tam's brother's wife a hand with their farm._

 

"Exactly one hand," Kael joked out loud. Jorel gave him a somewhat startled look, but Lisie burst into laughter. Kael grinned in satisfaction and continued reading his letter as he wrote it out slowly.

 

_We're growing all sorts of food up in the mountains. By the end of summer, we'll be able to start harvesting it. Lorai is teaching me to paint, too._

 

_I hope you're keeping up with your lessons on Dim, and I hope you're able to sleep well. I'm going to write letters to Aderia and Medin too, and I hope they get them one day._

 

_Write me back when you're ready. I miss you, but we'll meet again soon._

 

He let his hand hover over the parchment, splotched with ink here and there, and with words and letters crossed out as he'd messed them up. It was legible, though, and that was better than nothing at all.

 

"I'm not sure how to sign it," Kael sighed.

 

"That depends on how you feel about her," Jorel said. "You could sign it with love, or kisses..."

  
"No kisses," Kael grimaced. Lisie giggled.

 

"You could just sign your name," she suggested.

 

Kael's hand shook as he pressed the tip of the quill to the parchment.

 

_Kael_

 

He'd never signed his name to anything before, never learned to write it in any form. He felt a swell of pride, of accomplishment, so powerful it made his eye water. Lisie put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He grinned. He underlined his name, wrote it again, circled it.

 

Then he sat the quill down and took a deep breath. He looked the letter over again and nodded.

 

"Okay," he said.

 

Jorel gently took the parchment from the table and blew on it until the ink dried. He rolled it up neatly, and tied some string around it to keep the scroll closed.

 

"I'll send it off when I see Ma Tani later," Lisie smiled.

 

"With a bird?" Kael wondered. He'd always been fascinated with the messenger pigeons, though he'd rarely seen them, even in Exile. The Council always took care of all the communications, and Kael likely wouldn't have been trusted with sending out messages, even if he had known how to write.

 

Lisie nodded. "Ma Tani keeps the village's communications going. She has birds that fly between us and Sun City, and one that goes to Dim and back."

 

"Can I come with you?" Kael asked hopefully.

 

"Of course. You can give me a hand," Lisie grinned.

 

Kael laughed. Jorel groaned.

 

It was warm outside, so Kael only donned a thin coat to keep the sun off his skin. Lisie gathered a basket of food and cider, and another of Jorel's handiwork; a blanket and two shawls. Kael took the lighter of the two baskets to not be thrown too far off balance.

 

They said farewell to Jorel who waved them off in the window. As they walked down through the village, they met Sunny and Taniel who were heading the other way, returning to Sunny's house after eating lunch with Calem.

 

As expected, Sunny embraced Kael first, and her mother second. Taniel mimicked her clumsily, as he tended to do, even if he was the older one.

 

"We're going to Ma Tani to see the birds!" Kael exclaimed excitedly, before either of the children had a chance to ask.

 

Sunny giggled. "Aw, they're cute. We're going home for our lessons with dad."

 

Kael sat his basket down to ruffle Sunny's hair. "Work hard."

 

Sunny gave him a big thumbs up before taking Taniel's hand and running up the hill toward the house Lisie and Kael had just left. Kael sighed and picked his basket up again.

 

"They're so lively," Lisie smiled fondly as they continued walking. "Were you ever that energetic? I don't think I was. I was a quite serious child."

 

Kael nodded. "I was sick a lot. I grew up on Eld," he explained. Lisie shot him an understanding look. "I played with my little sisters sometimes, but usually stayed in bed. I made them grow up too fast, they always had to look after me."

 

"That wasn't your fault," Lisie insisted. They were headed toward the mountains once more, but passed the wagon trail that would take them up to the farms. "Eld is a harsh place. A labor camp. A little better than the dungeons in Sandpoint," she shuddered, "or Brightcastle. But still."

 

Kael understood that now. His family had been slaves, or at least prisoners. "I was sold to the Council. It saved my siblings' lives, I'm sure."

 

"And yours," Lisie agreed. It gave Kael pause. He hadn't thought about that... but if his parents, starving and desperate in the winter, had no other choice but to let one of their children starve... well, they'd pick the one that couldn't help with the work, wouldn't they? If he hadn't been born a winter child, perhaps he wouldn't have been so frail, but he also wouldn't have the chance to get away, or to save his family.

 

_Thank Is_ , Kael thought.

 

_I appreciate the sentiment, but I am not responsible for your birth_ , came the tired reply.

 

_Sorry, habit_ , Kael responded. 

 

_Not a frequent enough one,_ Is teased back. Kael's lips quirked in a smile.

 

He still had so many questions for his siblings. He wished he'd had the courage to stay with his family in Exile now... or at least speak some more to them.

 

"Does Ma Tani have a bird that goes to Ishem? To Exile?" he asked cautiously.

 

"I believe so," Lisie responded just as cautiously. "But it hasn't flown in a long time. Several pigeons Lorai sent to the Council never returned."

 

Kael felt a lurch of nausea. His skin itched, and it felt like ants were crawling through his veins. If he hadn't been holding tight to the basket, he would have pinched himself. "She sent letters to the Council?"

 

"Inquiring about your health and well-being, I believe." Lisie placed her free hand on Kael's shoulder, rubbing him gently.

 

The anger burned cold inside him. "I never got any letters."

 

"Perhaps the birds didn't make it," Lisie suggested. Kael doubted that was true. He remembered days when Marett went to collect the mail, and didn't return for hours. He remembered the suspicious, tense glances afterwards. He remembered feathers on his tunic. He remembered chicken stew for dinner, that didn't quite taste like chicken.

 

"Marett read them and killed the birds," Kael concluded, feeling hollow. He wondered if there had been other letters, if his siblings had tried to reach him, too. If there were other secrets. No, of course there were. Everything had been a lie. It was just sickening to think of how much of his experience, of his everyday life, had been manipulated. He had been so happy.

 

"That's awful," Lisie stared at him for a moment, slowly letting her hand drop to her side.

 

Kael nodded numbly. "It is."

 

Lisie sat her basket down and hugged him. Kael froze up for a moment before letting his basket fall, wrapping his arm around her waist. She smelled like the earth and like warmth, and while she wasn't nearly old enough to be, he wished she was his mother.

 

It wasn't until she pulled away and gave him a strange look that he realized he had thought out loud. His face burned. "I'm sorry. I..."

 

Lisie put her hands on her hips. "Don't you apologize for asking for what you want, young man."

 

Kael stared at her in horror for a moment, before she burst into laughter. She wrapped him up in a hug again.

 

"I'd be honored to," she said. "Besides, Sunny already calls you 'big brother', so it won't be a hassle. Jorel might be surprised if I come home with another child..."

 

Kael sniffed. He held onto her tightly, pulling away slowly. He had to ask, to make sure. "Sunny isn't Jorel's child, is she?"

 

Lisie's smile faded a little, and she shook her head. "I was pregnant when I fled from Sandpoint."

 

Kael nodded. He supposed that was another advantage to the Council cutting the winterchildren. Even if the rules were broken, there would be no evidence. "And Jorel knows?"

 

Lisie laughed, but it sounded a little sharp. It reminded Kael of Ryca's laughter when she was backed into a corner. He regretted asking.

 

"Of course. Jorel isn't stupid. And he's not... we don't have sex. So it'd be hard to explain, anyway." Lisie shrugged. Kael nodded. He sat down on the side of the trail, and Lisie sat down with him, taking his hand.

 

"I'm sorry for asking," Kael said.

 

"Things like that didn't happen on Eld?" Lisie wondered. Stroking his hand.

 

Kael shrugged. "I don't know. I was too young to notice, if they did. I don't remember my dad's face, so I couldn't tell you if I look like him or not. I look like my sisters and brother. Except for the winter child thing. I guess mom had strong blood too."

 

Lisie looked at him for a moment, then laughed. "I can see that in you. You're not one of the ocean people."

 

Ocean people? Kael hadn't heard the term before. "What does that mean?"

 

"Oh child," Lisie sighed. "The people who lived here first had strong blood, before the Ocean People arrived. Most of us were forced to labor camps, to Sandpoint or Eld. Or, we were simply slaughtered. Others hid, or married into the Ocean People, to save themselves."

 

"They didn't cover that in our history lessons," Kael shrugged. "The Council didn't tell us much of anything, beyond the history of Ishem, and of Is."

 

"They're not much better at telling our history here," Lisie confessed. "It's a difficult story to tell."

 

"All the true stories are," Kael agreed.

 

"Did things like that happen in the Spires?" Lisie asked. Kael felt cold. He pretended not to understand the question.

 

"Things like what?"

 

"Things like abuse. Things like rape. Things like violence and cruelty."

 

"Things like that happen everywhere," Kael avoided the question.

 

"Including the Spires?" Lisie insisted.

 

Kael looked down at the ground and gave in. "Including the Spires."

 

Lisie wrapped her free arm around him. Kael leaned on her for a moment, remembering how to breathe. After a moment, Lisie spoke up again.

 

"Ready to move on, son?"

 

Kael had to laugh at how serious she sounded, calling him son. "Yeah. I'm ready."

 

Lisie stood before helping Kael to his feet. They picked up their baskets, and continued on. It wasn't much further until they were rounding Skymningsberg in the opposite direction from the farm, and just in the shade of the massive mountain, amongst a trove of pines, stood a round cabin.

 

It was made from dark wood and had a roof of moss and grass. A chimney stuck up in the center, and smoke puffed up from it in a steady stream. It looked like a witches' hut. A large black beast of a cat, half the size of Tam's largest dog, was guarding the door. It did nothing to dispel the impression of witchcraft.

 

He felt his heart beat faster, and his eye widened to take it all in. Forgetting his manners, he hurried to the door, dropping the basket on his way. He crouched down in front of the cat, which looked at him, but did not move or hiss or otherwise object to his presence.

 

Kael held his hand out to it. "Hi, kitty."

 

It sniffed his hand, then licked it. Its tongue was coarse against his skin. He remembered stray cats sometimes escaping the cold and finding their way into the servant tunnels under the Spires, and other candidates sneaking food to the cats from their already slim rations. Since the cats took care of rats, roaches and other pests, they were left alone by the Council as well.

 

The door opened above him. Kael glanced up the stairs, and there stood Ma Tani, leaning on a staff. She was a very small, very hunched old woman, with more wrinkles than Councilwoman Iona.

 

"Good afternoon, Ma," Lisie spoke behind Kael, picking up his basket as well and walking up to the door. Kael climbed to his feet and bowed swiftly. He knew better than to be willfully rude to a witch.

 

"Madam Tani," he greeted.

 

The old lady groped the air and got up on her toes to pat him on the head. She felt his face with her warm, wrinkly hand. Trailing her fingers over his mouth, nose, forehead. Feeling the stitching on his eyepatch.

 

"My prince," she responded and bowed her head.

 

"Not anymore," Kael said.

 

"All the better," Ma Tani said without missing a beat. "Royalty's no good. Here, I made tea."

 

She ushered them inside the cabin, which was painfully hot. It smelled heavily of herbs and incense, and the beams holding up the green roof hung heavy with dried herbs, fruit, beads and polished glass. They reflected the flickering light of the fire in the center of the cabin. Rather than a stove like most homes in the village had, Ma Tani had a fire pit with a cauldron hanging over it, suspended from blackened chains from the beams above. Along the circular walls was a clutter of all sorts of things. Near the door on one side was a shrine so Sol, on the other one to <O>, and across from the door one to Is. Next to that, yet one more shrine to some god Kael did not recognize, but from the colors he assumed it was some kind of water deity. Each shrine was a simple wooden table with a plentitude of items stacked on top. A statue or symbol of each deity, and then sacrifices. Food scraps, feathers. Between the shrine to Sol and the shrine to the unknown water god was a nest of blankets and pillows, that seemed to double as a bed. Across from that, between the other two shrines, stood a low desk cluttered with a cutting board, knives, a mortar and pestle, and multiple wood or wicker containers.

 

Ma Tani sat near the fire and waved them closer. "Here, here, children. Sit down."

 

She groaned as she reached for cups for them, using a ladle to scoop hot fluids from the cauldron into each cup. Kael glanced into the cauldron before sitting and very well, it was full of tea. He'd never seen such a sheer amount of it, and he wondered if this was where Lorai got her tea habit from.

 

He sat by Ma Tani. Lisie put the baskets down and unpacked them. "Some gifts from Jorel and I, and Sunny. Here is a new blanket for you, and two shawls... I made you some spiced cider. Sunny helped bake you some bread."

 

Ma Tani smiled and wrapped both shawls around her already layered body. She wore pants and thick socks under her gown, then a jacket, then a coat, then a scarf, and now two knitted shawls as well. Kael was sweating just thinking about it, but he, like Lisie and Lorai, was used to the cold of Ishem, rather than the heat of Solfru.

 

"Tell your daughter thanks, and your husband as well," Ma Tani nodded in Lisie's general direction. "I appreciate it greatly."

 

Kael was too curious to stay silent much longer. He held his tea cup close and looked around. "Do you believe in all these gods?" He'd met people who believed in one, but respected other beliefs. He had met people who believed in none. He'd never met one who believed and practised many religions before.

 

Ma Tani chuckled. "I am the oldest in this village, and the village turns to me for my wisdom. I wouldn't be very wise if I disrespected any one of my villagers or their gods, would I?"

 

"That's not an answer," Kael protested.

 

"It's not," Ma Tani agreed, but wouldn't answer his question still. Kael sighed and sipped his tea, annoyed with her smug smile.

 

"We also came to send a letter to Dim," Lisie reminded Kael, who forgot to be annoyed.

 

"I was wondering... if it's possible to sent letters to Exile, too," Kael wondered.

 

Ma Tani grinned at him, showing the gaps in her teeth. "Certainly. Snow will be excited to fly again."

 

"I'm sorry my... I'm sorry Marett killed your birds," Kael mumbled.

 

"Marett? The priest from Frost?" Tani wondered, and Kael's heart beat faster. Did they know one another?

 

Kael nodded, then realized she couldn't see him. "Yes," he confirmed. "He became High Councilor, after murdering Sebhan."

 

"Then I am sorry Marett was your anything. He was a nasty man," Tani offered. Kael appreciated it, and agreed.

 

"My husband," he said. _My father_ _,_ he thought.

 

"Oh, child," Tani sighed. She climbed to her feet with a mighty grunt, steadying herself on her cane. "Do you have your letters ready?"

 

"One of them," Kael replied. "I need more time with the other."

 

"Then we shall sent the one, and you shall return when you are ready with the other letter. Or earlier. I never say no to visits, unless it's time for my nap." Tani chuckled deeply. Kael warmed to her instantly. She had nothing at all in common with Iona, save for the wrinkles and the bad teeth.

 

The dovecot was outside the cabin, and a little bit uphill through the woods. Coming nearer, they could hear the cooing and calling of the birds in their cot. The pen itself was a simple construction of wood, with several slats for windows and hasped doors to let the birds out. It was raised off the ground to avoid foxes, and the slats were narrow enough that no birds of prey or polecats could get to the birds inside. Tani opened panels to reveal the coop inside, with plenty of comfortable room for the ten or so birds to wander, stretch their wings, and roost on pegs or in the bed of straw on the floor.

 

Tani reached into a pocket on her coat and pulled out a handful of seeds and grain, dropping it into the feeding tray. The pigeons swooped on it, cooing in excitement. Once they had had their fill, Tani plucked out a pigeon with a marked purple ring around its neck. She closed the panel and locked it.

 

"This little gentleman is Periwinkle. He flies between us and the monastery on Dim." Tani explained, grabbing a small harness hanging from the side of the cot and dressing the pigeon so that it went around its wings, while not hindering them. Kael was amazed that she could tell the birds apart, while being blind no less.

 

Lisie, who seemed to have done this before, took Kael's letter and put it into the tube attached to the harness, and latched the tube shut.

 

"Kiss for safe travels," Tani said, holding the surprisingly calm pigeon up to Kael.

 

Kael leaned in and pressed a light kiss to the bird's head. "Fly true," he said.

 

Tani tossed the pigeon into the air. It hung there for a moment, before extending its wings and flitting off toward the coast, toward Dim.

 

 

 


	17. Might Not Say It Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Gabrielle Aplin - Please Don't Say You Love Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxNYvk_0Onw&index=6&list=PL5ERIjGnzWbLg2P0JuGn9BRFtl7J3iesy)

It was strange, having a room of his own again. Even after more than a half moon since it was built for him, Kael wasn't used to it. Sleeping in a soft bed, the privacy and stillness. He could close the door, if he wished. He could let the dogs on his bed, if he wished. But otherwise, his room was empty. It contained only gifts, as his old room had. He owned nothing that he had made himself, nothing that he had purchased or earned. Still he lived on charity, on favors unpaid. Lorai told him that wasn't an issue in Skymning, and Kael had realized as much as well. The issue was in how he saw himself, and his own place in the world. He still felt like a burden.

 

He wouldn't be for much longer, though. He was helping his 'mom' Lisie with the farm every other morning, and Jorel with classes now and then. He had gone back to see Ma Tani a few times, and each time she had him retell another story about The Spires or the Winter Council, or of Is himself, and in return she taught him about how she lived on her own while being blind. And every so often he brought part of Tam's fresh catch to Calem and spoke to him for a while as well, before bringing back one of Calem's delicious fruit pies to Tam and Lorai. Each time he was told how helpful he was, or how much he was appreciated, the lighter he felt.

 

The days were longer, the birds were singing, and the fields around the village were beginning to blossom. Kael's head hadn't hurt too bad in weeks, and he had barely thought about Marett, at least not in the way that made his heart ache and his stomach turn. His thoughts, whenever he wasn't busy on the farm or with Jorel's classes or playing with Tam and Lorai's dogs, were fixated on one thing alone, and it was becoming difficult to hide the bruises on his thighs, especially as the weather grew much warmer in early Solfruan spring than what he was used to in Ishemish summers, and Lorai began to shorten his gowns for him.

 

At first, it was mostly Lorai he thought of. Her fingers, those steady confident hands knowing just where to stroke. Her smile, her laugh, her eyes. She was safe, she had been his home before Marett was, and now he had her back again. Her voice, full of mischief, suggesting that there were still things to try, other things that might make him feel good. And yet, since that time by the river, he hadn't had the courage to ask for a repeat.

 

And then, it was Tam as well. He marveled over her two sides – the stoic Tam he had seen the first time they met, who barely smiled and who didn't speak much. And then, the warm and caring Tam who'd stayed up with him at nights he couldn't sleep, even though she needed to leave for the sea before long. The Tam who blushed, when Lorai teased her. The Tam he heard at night in the room next to his, trying to keep quiet while Lorai made her feel like she had made Kael feel by the river.

 

They were both making his stomach flutter and his heart race, and he would have felt confused or distressed by it, had Lorai not told him what she had by the river. They both liked him, too. And still, he hesitated.

 

He was shy. He wasn't sure what might happen. How he might react. He didn't want to disappoint anyone. And, Ryca's words from so long ago still rang in his mind. Did he really want this? Did he really want them, or was he just obsessed with a new sensation? Did he really love them, or was he just so grateful to them that he didn't know how else to pay them back?

 

"Kael," Lorai called from her loft above the kitchen. Kael jolted, blinking as his attention returned to reality. He had been kneeling at the table, trying to write his letter to his siblings in Exile. He knew he wanted to tell them something, but none of the words seemed right. How do you tell your siblings you love them and don't blame them at all, but that you aren't coming back to them?

 

He pushed the parchment aside. So far, he had only written their names in harsh, scratchy handwriting. He had probably spelled them wrong, too. He stood and rolled his neck, realizing he had no idea how long he'd just been sitting there, thinking. He climbed the stairs up to Lorai's art studio and found her seated crosslegged on the floor with a reed canvas leaning on a low easel in front of her.

 

"Did you need me?" He asked.

 

Lorai's grin almost made him regret coming up at all. He could have pretended he didn't hear her, or that he was out playing with the dogs...

 

"Oh, don't look scared," Lorai laughed. "Come. Sit down. Let me paint your portrait."

 

Kael hesitated. "I'm not taking my clothes off."

 

"Shush, it's just a portrait. Chest up. You can keep your clothes on." Lorai smiled, and Kael relaxed and had a seat on the nest of pillows that seemed to have been placed across from Lorai for that exact purpose. He rested his hand on his lap, and sat up straight.

 

"Your hair is growing out," Lorai said, bringing her brush to the pigments mixed with oils and egg. "Do you want me to paint you with that eyepatch?"

 

Kael reached up and took the patch off, holding it in his lap. His left eye didn't hurt anymore, and he didn't see any shadows or movement in it anymore.

 

"It's not all black anymore," Lorai smiled. Kael nodded.

 

"I still can't see, though." He had finally gathered the courage to look at himself closely in the polished copper mirror, and the whites of his eye were indeed white again, but his pupil was blown wide, bleeding into the iris. Where he had once had two ice blue eyes with reddish pupils, he now had one blue, one red and unseeing. What he did not say, and what worried him more, was that his right eye began to weaken, too. Perhaps he was simply paranoid.

 

"You probably won't be able to," Lorai said, as gently as one could say such a thing. Kael nodded.

 

Lorai painted in silence, humming now and then and looking up. At first Kael felt self conscious, sitting up straighter and arranging his face each time she glanced at him. But soon, he grew fidgety, and bored, and distracted.

 

When Lorai focused, her hair fell in front of her face in such a way that caught the sunlight filtering in between the planks and caused her to glow. Her white eyelashes shielded her eyes, and each freckle across her nose and cheeks looked like another star in the sky. She pursed her red lips tightly, chewed on them. Sometimes, she stuck her tongue out, just so.

 

Kael felt too hot, his skin itched, and he clenched his fist to keep from pinching himself again, to try to distract himself from the heat. His face felt warm, and when she glanced up again and shifted, her small breasts moved under her thin dress, and her nipples hardened under the nearly translucent fabric. Kael's mouth turned dry, and he let out a soft groan.

 

Lorai lifted an eyebrow at him. "Are you feeling okay? You look like you're catching a fever. Does Lisie work you too hard?"

 

"Lorai, I want to do that thing again. With you. And... and Tam, if she wants to," Kael blurted out, before he hesitated again and resigned himself to suffering more. "If that's okay. It's just... I haven't been able to think of anything else."

 

Lorai giggled. "Aw, you're so cute. I'm kind of flattered that you can't stop thinking about me."

 

Kael wanted to curl up and hide with embarrassment. "It's not like you have a lot of competition."

 

"Wow," Lorai laughed. "That's cold, Kael."

 

"No! No, I mean..." What did he mean? He bit his lip. He was pinching himself again, and the throbbing pain soothed his mind. It couldn't be healthy, but he didn't know how else to deal with it. "I mean, you were always really pretty. Even in the Spires, I thought you were really pretty. And I don't... I don't have a lot of friends, or people I trust."

 

Lorai's expression melted and she wiped her eyes with her arm. When she lowered it again, her eyes were watery. Kael's heart sank, but Lorai grinned.

 

"You dork. You have tons of friends here. You don't trust any of them?" Lorai was watching him, and her expression was so gentle it hurt. If she really paid such close attention to him, that was even more reason to trust her. She knew things about him he hadn't even realized.

 

He trusted Lisie, because he knew she was a good person, and he knew what she had been through, and she knew his past, as well. And so did Calem, and Ma Tani. He had told these people more than he had told Lorai or Tam, but he hadn't needed to tell them anything. They had already understood. He trusted Jorel, too, because he'd proven he could be trusted. He trusted Taniel and Sunny. He trusted Ryca, even though she was so far away. He trusted his siblings, even though they were even further away.

 

Kael nodded slowly. "I guess I do. I'm not sure when that happened."

 

"And you trust me and Tam?" She didn't sound like she'd judge him either which way he decided to answer. But he told her the truth.

 

Kael nodded again. "I trust you and Tam."

 

Lorai moved closer and embraced him. "We won't break your trust, I promise."

 

"Thank you." Kael hugged her back. She seemed to be ready to return to painting, when he started fidgeting again.

 

Lorai put her paintbrush back down. "Yes?"

 

"It's just..." Kael hesitated. "I'm not sure if I'm going to like it. And I'm not sure if I like you."

 

"I'm hurt." Lorai smirked.

 

"I mean, like... like I'd be your... I'm not sure if I'm in love with you or Tam or both of you. Or if this is just a... need." Kael didn't have much experience with love or romance, beyond fairy tales and being the target of some twisted obsession with a girl long since dead.

 

"That's okay," Lorai assured him. "We're not gonna ask you to marry us after one night. If you don't like it, we won't do it again. If you like it but change your mind later, that's okay. And if you just want some stress relief now and then..." She shrugged. "We're friends. We don't have to be anything more or less unless you want to."

 

"But you want to," Kael protested.

 

"Only if you want to," Lorai countered smoothly. "Neither Tam nor I want to do anything that you don't. We take good care of each other... you wouldn't leave us hanging."

 

Kael allowed the words to sink in for a moment. He decided to try to believe that Lorai was being truthful, and that she or Tam wouldn't be hurt or disappointed if he backed out on them, now or later.

 

"Okay," he said finally.

 

"Okay," Lorai grinned. "Now chin up, and smile."

 

She picked up her paintbrush one more time, and continued.

 

\---

 

When Tam came home that evening, there was a sense of electricity in the air. Perhaps Kael was simply imagining it as he was nervously picking at his dinner, but Lorai and Tam were exchanging an unusual amount of silent glances, having a mute conversation right before him without even making the hand signs Aderia had used. Meanwhile, Kael was having a silent conversation on his own.

 

_Are you sure this is something you want?_ Is asked, for the dozenth time that afternoon. 

 

_I can't be sure until I try it. I don't want to be a recluse all my life,_ Kael retorted, dipping his bread in his soup until it was so soggy it almost fell apart under his fingers.  _I'm not even sure what exactly_ this  _is. I trust Lorai._

 

_The plan, I believe, is for you to watch and decide what seems most interesting_ , Is hummed in a detached sort of tone.

 

Kael raised his eyebrows.  _How do you know?_

 

Suddenly, the mental image of Is clapping a long-fingered hand over the lower part of his mouth-less face appeared in Kael's mind, and then his mind grew utterly silent and still again. He narrowed his eye in suspicion and watched Lorai and Tam. They exchanged frequent glances and seemed to be thinking intently... and then, at the same time, they stopped and turned to Kael.

 

"He's talking to you too!" Kael exclaimed, flabbergasted. "The snitch!" 

 

The presence in his mind was back. _Don't be angry. Lorai was simply concerned for your well-being and state of mind._

 

"What else are you telling people about my state of mind?!" Kael exclaimed out loud, since it hardly mattered anymore, and his conversation wasn't secret anyway.

 

_Nothing that doesn't concern them._ Is placed his hands on Kael's shoulders. He could feel them, but not see them.  _Lorai was worried she was taking advantage of you, as was Tam. I'm assuring them that they are not. Nothing else has been shared, because nothing else concerns them._

 

Kael felt some of his outrage cool. Lorai was chewing on her lip in concern, and Tam gave him a subtly apologetic look. Kael sighed. "I'm fine. You're not taking advantage of me. If anything, I'm..."  _Worried I'm taking advantage of you_ .

 

"You're not taking advantage of us!" Tam exclaimed with an unexpected forcefulness. 

 

_Nothing else, huh?_ Kael thought sarcastically. He was met with silence, but not the emptiness indicating that Is had left his mind. In other words... he was sulking. Or felt embarrassed to be caught out.  _I'll think quieter from now on._

 

But he couldn't be angry at Lorai and Tam for it. If he had a way to know what others thought, to know that they weren't lying to him, or only interacting with him out of pity, he would have been tempted to use it too. 

 

_It wasn't like that_ , Is interrupted his train of thought once more.  _You'd be happy with each other. I was trying to help. ._

 

Kael groaned at his matchmaker brain ghost.  _Nature guardian spirit_ , Is corrected him.

 

After that, it seemed like the tension melted away, somehow. There wasn't much more to be embarrassed about, when Is had broadcasted his thoughts to the other two anyway. 

 

"So, you just want me to watch?" Kael asked shamelessly. It was strangely refreshing.

 

Tam turned completely red and looked away, but Lorai nodded just as shamelessly. "At first, yeah. You watch, and touch when you feel like it. And when you're comfortable, let us know, and we'll go from there."

 

Kael let out a strange-sounding laugh. He was nervous, but amused at the same time. "You've spent a lot of time thinking about this." Was he that broken that having sex had to be planned out like this? He supposed Lorai knew him better than he did, since she had an action plan and all.

 

Lorai stuck her tongue out. "I'll have you know this is how Tam and Lorai and I started, too. Step by step. No pressure to go further. You never know what might make you freeze up. Oh, we need a safeword!"

 

Kael was amazed that Lorai treated this so matter-of-factly, like she did any situation. It made him wonder, again, if she really had been hurt in the Spires as he had.

 

_You could ask,_ Is said.

 

"What's a safeword?" Kael asked, instead.

 

"Tam?" Lorai smirked. Tam fidgeted, and she was very red now.

 

"It's a keyword," Tam was struggling to keep her voice even and calm, "to let the other person know if you need to stop or take a break. Something you wouldn't say accidentally, while you're, uh, playing."

 

"Instead of just saying no?" Kael wondered. 

 

Lorai nodded. "So there won't be any confusion. Like, if it feels really good it might be overwhelming and you start saying no, but you don't really want to stop. If we have a safeword, everyone knows for sure that they need to stop. We should have one for 'slower', as well. Then there's safe signals, if you can't use your mouth, and-"

 

"Why wouldn't I be able to use my mouth?" Kael wondered, suddenly worried. 

 

Tam hid her face in her hands. Lorai started giggling and rubbed Tam's back. "Maybe we'll talk about that later... step by step, right?"

 

After dinner, Tam helped Lorai clean up the kitchen. Both were moving in a hurry, and Kael was anxious, too, teetering between wanting them to hurry and wanting them to slow down. Eventually, his pacing made Lorai send him off to wash up and go wait in their bedroom.

 

Kael paced in the bedroom instead, anxiously waiting before finally sitting down on the bed. He couldn't help but imagine what might happen, or why he potentially would not be able to use his mouth. He fidgeted and scraped at the bed frame as he glanced around and finally, he heard the light footfalls signifying that Lorai and Tam were on their way. Kael sat up taller when they entered the room.

 

Tam was still red, fidgeting with her clothing. It actually made Kael feel less awkward, seeing how nervous she was. Lorai, on the other hand, seemed to feed off of Tam's energy and grew more confident still.

 

"Today, we'll use the safewords Tam and I normally use," Lorai instructed. "Red to stop right away. Yellow to slow down. Green means everything is okay and to keep going. Don't worry about using them for any reason, okay?"

 

Kael nodded and clenched his fist so he wouldn't pinch himself. "And I just... watch."

 

"Until you want to do more than watch," Lorai smiled. She brought Tam over to the bed, stroking her back slowly. Kael blushed a little. Just watching felt worse than listening in on them at night, but at least they knew and wanted him to be there now. "And don't forget. If you're uncomfortable, you need to let us know."

 

_Or I will_ , Is agreed in Kael's head. He shook his head rapidly.

 

_I'll let them know! Get out of here! I don't want you seeing this_ , Kael thought as loudly as he could.

 

_I don't want to see this either._ Then there was silence, and emptiness, and Kael knew that he was gone, at least from his head. If he was still near, then so be it.

 

He realized he had argued silently with Is, but not actually agreed to Lorai's terms. He smiled sheepishly. "Uh... green?"

 

Lorai grinned and began undressing Tam slowly. 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to cut it off there but the chapter was getting long! 
> 
> Next chapter should be all sex though! ;)


End file.
